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INJUSTICE 

AND 

NATIONAL DECAY 



AN ESSAY— Z)i? S. F, Shorev 



PUBLISHED BY S. F. SHOREY 
Seattle, Wash. 






Copyrighted by S. F. Shorey 
1915 



J 



DEC I6i9i5 

©CI.A418045 



CONTENTS. 



Dangerous Suppression. 

Does all Life have within it an Evolving 

Proclivity ? 
Political Parties — Conservative and Pro- 
gressive. 

In what way do the two parties differ? 

What Service do conflicting groups of men 

perform in Progress? 
Why Conservatives hold a Majority. 

Why do most men desire to be on the 

Conservative side? 
Why men fear Progressive Party Adminis- 
tration. 

Do You feel that you need a party 

guardian ? 

If so, why, and by which party? 

Why not demand the opportunity to help 

yourself ? 

Why "hard times" during Progressive 

Administrations ? 
Progressive Party Handicaps. 

Can we rationally look for sudden pros- 
perity under Progressive Rule? 

(i) 



Knowledge, Our First Need. 

How to secure funds to meet the require- 
ments of our educational need. 

Is there a natural fund? Can it be made 

available ? 
The Way of Mental Unfoldment. 

In what way does intelligence unfold? 

Why do Pictures attract more than Printed 

Pages? 

Why to most persons do the best books 

seem tiresome? 
A Further Analysis. 

The Boy, his drum, and his whistle. The 

Salvation Army. 

Life's Unfoldment from noisy Impotence 

to silent Power. 

Noise and vulgar types of men. ''Feathers 

in the Hair." 

Brutal Leaders, Slaughter, Carnage, and 

their elimination. 
Is there a better Way? 

Have we some choice of ways to go, men 

to be, things to have? 

Is the Fighting way to improvement the 

best way? 

(ii) 



The ^' Bossy'' type as a Cause. 

The loves and the hates of the ** Bossy" 

type of mind. 

Why the ''Boss" loves the dog and hates 

the cat and the ''Suffragette." 
Small Greatness — Its Use. 

The small man seems large to the man 

who is still smaller. 

The drastic experiences needed by small 

and dishonest men. 

The function served by the domineering 

man to this end. 

The boss and his big collar. 
On which side is the Majority? 

What, if you had it, would you do with a 

Million Dollars? 

Are most men for sale and too small to be 

trusted? 

Why do so few understand the importance 

of personal honesty? 

The threat against American ideals. 
Only One Problem to Solve. 



(iil) 



AN OUTLINE PKOLOGUE 

'^^ so entitle a book as to suggest the sub- 
^^ ject matter is not a simple thing. Any 
one of a dozen or more names might 
have been used as the title of this essay. The 
one selected is descriptive, represents the 
essay in content, and is intended to convey the 
idea that the immediate cause of national de- 
cay and extinction is injustice. 

Injustice is the near-at-hand cause of 
national decay. Monopoly is a form of in- 
justice, an effect of selfishness. Back of 
selfishness may be found a cause still more 
remote, the one of ignorance. From out the 
animal man progress is unfolding the hu- 
man, mental, and moral man. Life's con- 
flict, process, or evolution is a march toward 
extended consciousness. Extinct civilizations 
and dead men are the dead forms of Nature's 
laboratory experiments with life. 

Of the two factors of progress embraced 
by the two political parties the tendencies 
of the Conservative party have been herein 
considered more at length for the reason 



that its evils are at this stage believed to be 
a greater menace than the evils of the op- 
posite. Conservatives, or thrifty persons, 
are less selfish and unjust in small ways, per- 
haps, than the thriftless, but the wealthy 
have the means and the power to indulge 
their selfishness in large, concealed, and 
monopolistic ways, hence the entailed evils 
of their selfishness are very much greater. 

In spite of the efforts of their few wise 
men, nations decay and die. Do they be- 
come extinct, as many believe, by having 
lived out the term of their natural lives? 
Do they die of old age, or are they, as 
others believe, gradually killed by dishonesty 
— a product of ignorance? 

Cannot the cause be traced back — back to 
human ignorance? 

May we not legitimately look upon this 
present world tragedy as one of Nature's 
efforts to make progress continuous by shock- 
ing the world into a higher general intel- 
ligence ? 

The chief value of history to the present 
generation lies in the philosophy of history — lies 
in showing how far the present is the product 

—2— 



of the past. Hence the philosophy of history 
should be sound. 

The building of such a structure requires 
a knowledge of the civilizations . of past 
ages. 

The power of generalization is required. 
The factors of all of this move and pause, 
the cause of life and death, common to all, 
must be traced through the existence of 
each succeeding nation, if, in our search, we 
are to ascertain whether the cause of death 
was old age or disease — natural or artificial. 

No remarkable discernment is required to 
see that each civilization evolves and passes 
on to its successor a gift of gain in progress. 

This gain of permanent value seems to be 
the only way in which history repeats itself 
except in passing through a term of life. 

History seems never to repeat a program. 
That is, the form through which national life 
is expressed seems never to be repeated. 
Each civilization gradually constructs for its 
particular use; each builds a new form fitted 
to serve the functions of a new and a 
higher life a new and larger life than any 
its predecessors have enjoyed, a form through 

~3— 



which added knowledge can be used and 
higher ideals be expressed. 

Nor can the student who desires a funda- 
mental understanding of history afford to 
stop with history. He needs in his mental 
equipment a knowledge of life. 

History is but the story of life. Its tale 
is that of the onward and upward move 
of the masses through a succession of national 
forms. 

The roots of history strike into a deeper 
soil than that which is commonly recog- 
nized as history. 

Since history is a manifestation of human 
life, a sound philosophy of history requires 
that biology and psychology, as well as 
sociology, economics, and politics be taken 
into consideration. 

"Written history, in which there figures no 
philosophy of history embracing the factors 
of individual life and mind, is but the 
trunk and leafless branches of a dead tree. 
A sound philosophy of history makes history 
understandable. 

Understanding is a matter of finding funda- 
mentals. Political party functions, the pro- 
duction and the distribution of wealth, social 



relations, monopoly, moral conduct, freedom, 
all remain befogged in the mind until given 
law and order by an equipment of many re- 
lated fields of knowledge. 

He who wrote ''History repeats itself" has 
prevented millions from seeing in history 
only so much as the gradual rise, flourish, 
slow decay and extinction of nations. Men 
are limited in outlook by not being equipped 
with that which goes to complete and make 
useful what they call history. 

Is there not in this unfolding proclivity of 
life, evident in all of the facts of life, the 
declaration of a purpose? In spite of life's 
chaotic seeming, is there not method in this 
move? 

If we think to much purpose, are we not 
compelled to infer that the inharmony of 
life is due to broken natural law? 

Are not men being driven through suffer- 
ing to an ever better understanding of 
Nature's plan for their welfare, to see that 
it is much larger than their own? Are they 
not, by suffering, being awakened to the 
shorter way to intelligence, to a stronger 
will, and to a greater happiness? Are they 

—5— 



not being driven to rescue themselves from 
the hands of fate by self-cultivation? 

The brute does not improve. A very large 
part of its fitness to survive lies in its power 
to overcome other brutes. 

Most of the suffering in human life is 
due to the fact that the majority are still 
working along brute lines of survival, and 
the improvement is largely incidental. 

In spite of their claim to superiority, do 
not most men fail to see the tremendous im- 
portance of their power of voluntary im- 
provement? Are they not particularly blind 
to the tremendous natural struggle for 
moral expression in human life? 

On the brute plane, predation is natural and 
legitimate. 

For, the brute has not reached in life's 
unfolding move the place where the need of 
moral conduct appears. It is without con- 
science, has but little intelligence, little free- 
dom of action, and its suffering seems confined 
largely to the physical. 

Man has a power of choice which he has 
failed to use to high moral ends. His sup- 
pression and perversion of life's energies by 
dishonest use explain the turmoils of life. Un- 



happiness is the fruit of ''Bossism," auto- 
cracy, and monopoly — in a word to injustice. 

Before, then, any man or group of men can 
be safely entrusted with very much power 
over others, must not the human family 
have increased very greatly in wisdom and 
in honesty ? Today the best regulation is com- 
petition. 

Were it possible at this time to set up a 
socialistic system of production and distribu- 
tion, where could the group of men with 
sufficient wisdom and honesty be found that 
might be entrusted with the power that such 
a tremendous monopoly would place in their 
hands ? 

Until general intelligence and honesty have 
advanced far beyond the present stage, could 
not, and would not, a government thus power- 
fully equipped, even more emphatically than 
now, refuse justice to the masses? 

"Would not socialism in operation be a sel- 
fish, greedy autocracy, with all the means in 
its hands to achieve the most ambitious de- 
signs of its leaders? The masses are not 
yet sufficiently intelligent to act in their own 
behalf. Even though they were equipped with 
sufficient intelligence to act in their own be- 

—7— 



half, would they not be powerless to enforce 
their demands for justice, powerless to move 
against the powerful governing machine? 

The ambition of small men is not money, 
but power over others. Money is but a 
means to this end. 

The meaning of law, courts, prisons, safes, 
locks, bonds, mortgages, and war is that men 
and women, through ignorance and dishonesty, 
are led to abuse their freedom to act. At 
present men have too little intelligence to use 
honestly what freedom they have. Hence, 
the importance of competing parties. 

Is there not all around us an evident effort 
of progress to bring ever greater justice into 
the conduct of men? Note Nature's rebuke 
of this dishonesty in all lands — manifesting 
itself in poverty, discontent, strikes, rebellion, 
and war. Are these not evidences that the 
moral aim has not been met? 

Are we likely then to have become suf- 
ficiently enlightened and moral, when the 
present European struggle is ended, to be 
ready for the Millenium — a condition for which 
so little has been done in the way of educa- 
tional preparation? 

—8— 



Must not tlie world pass through many wars, 
much autocratic slavery and suffering, ere 
it can see and feel with sufficient clearness 
to grasp the determined moral aim of the 
law of evolution? 

There is, however, an educational means of 
preventing much of the suffering, could there 
come an awakening to its importance and to 
the fact that it could be used. 

Nations, as well as men, are destroyed by 
ignorance and dishonesty. 

Learning to live longer and better is a 
gradual process, and, improvement, so far, is 
largely a matter of being driven. 

We have ever before us the injustice of 
men, a condition into which they are led by 
their autocratic desires, and from which we 
are almost obliged to infer that there is a 
long wade ahead through ignorance and suf- 
fering to a general realization that no one 
can be truly happy till all men are just. 

Is there not much fighting ahead, fighting 
that no longer will be necessary, when it is 
clearly seen that the short way to justice 
and happiness is that of educational enlighten- 
ment? 



We have before us the facts of life from 
which we may infer its purpose. 

The experiences of living compel either a 
belief in the possibility of voluntary improve- 
ment or an abandonment of our educational 
ideals, and consequently of the belief in the 
free action of the human will. 

Progress has been and still is a slow pro- 
cess, for the reason that there has never yet 
been sufficient general intelligence in the 
world to free production, distribution, and 
education from monopoly. Never in the 
history of the world has competition, for the 
above reason, been able to show what it 
could do to increase intelligence, to encour- 
age honesty, to improve social conditions, and 
to promote happiness. It is not competition 
that intensifies selfishness, but monopoly. The 
best regulator, could it be inaugurated, till 
such a time at least that men are more en- 
lightened, would be competitive freedom. 

Men fail to grasp the moral aim of progress 
for the reason that they fail to look beyond 
the brute phase of unfoldment, in which the 
''climb" is by devouring. 

Are not, then, the injustice of selfishness, 
greed, as manifested in monopoly and auto- 

—10— 



cratic rule, and the failure to recognize prac- 
tically the moral aim of evolution, the im- 
mediate causes of national decay? 

Is there not in evidence hereof a world- 
wide political, economic, social, and individual 
sickness, a great unrest, a turmoil, and little 
happiness ? 

But underlying this disturbance do we not 
find a still deeper cause in that lack of general 
intelligence which permits this condition to 
exist ? 

The thing needed is obvious. It is AWAK- 
ENING. 

The purpose of this essay is a very brief 
but rational consideration of life's unfold- 
ment, the location of some of the factors of 
progress, on the one hand, and to find, on the 
other, some of the obstructions and per- 
versions, — that is, some of the antagonistic 
factors of growth. 

Man must be made to go forward until he 
learns to improve without opposition, with- 
out individual and group rivalry, such as 
clubs, churches, and political parties. 

Barbarism or hatred of work must be 
tortured out of men, and love of work tortured 
into its place. Laziness, lack of knowledge 

—11— 



and dishonesty account for the conflict of 
life. Have we not, then, a choice? Must it 
not be moral progress or national decay? 
In feeling, what are YOU? A democrat or 
an autocrat, a conservative or a progressive? 



A DANGEROUS SUPPEESSION 

XIFE in all of its forms is equipped with 
a law of unfolding change, with a 
proclivity and a power that makes for 
improvement as unerring as that which moves 
the earth in its orbit. To obstruct the move 
of this energy or to deflect it from its natural 
line of expression involves great danger to 
the life of the vehicle through which it is 
endeavoring to function. 

For, suppressed energy means imprisoned 
energy — power pent up — a force which ulti- 
mately will either escape in some form of 
destruction or will establish itself as an ab- 
normal growth. 

This holds true both of individual and of 
social life. Suppression of progress by fixed 
forms results in the perverted use of life's 

—12— 



energies, and explains their destructive escape, 
as may now be observed both in Mexico and 
in Europe. 

Where old forms of ignorance, injustice, 
and tyranny have been sufficiently strong to 
dam up and hold back an accumulation, the 
pent up forces have always burst forth in 
some form of revolt. 

In Spain these restrictions were of suf- 
ficient strength to produce national paralysis. 

As a rule, however, this continuous rebirth 
in Nature cannot be long suppressed. And, 
though attempted in all countries, in even the 
most civilized, these efforts to suppress normal 
unfoldment, legitimate freedom to act, are 
followed by such breaking away as is mani- 
fested in different forms of rebellion and 
waste — in idleness, crime, strikes, anarchy, 
destruction, and domestic inharmony — the 
revolts of Nature, its protests against 
fixed forms of selfishness, against injustice, 
monopolies, conventional restrictions, and 
dogma. 

Rebellion in some form and in all lands is 
always in operation and is the safety valve of 
national life. 

Evolution is the natural ''move" of unfold- 

—13— 



ing change; it is the program of life, of life 
feeling its way into improved instruments of 
material expression; it is a process of con- 
tinuous rebuilding, a discarding of the unfit 
for the tentatively fit, for that which is bet- 
ter suited to meet the requirements of im- 
proved but temporary action. 

This *'move" is not confined to the field 
embraced by the biological sciences but works 
with the same tireless and irresistible de- 
termination to carve out higher forms of 
social, political, economic, mechanical, and re- 
ligious expression. 

Comparatively few persons have come to 
understand this natural demand of progressive 
change well enough to use it voluntarily (and 
of governments, not even one.) This explains 
the turmoils of life. 

The growth of a tree is accompanied by 
change in the bursting of its bark. This 
phenomenon indicates that beneath the bark 
new cells are being formed. Enclose the 
trunk of the tree in a jacket it cannot burst, 
and it will die. Since it has been denied 
freedom of growth, it must die. 

Failing, as most men unquestionably do, to 
understand the universal law of unfolding 

—14— 



life, failing to see that a moving poise, that 
an equilibrinm of structure, cannot be pre- 
served without meeting the requirements of 
the law of progress, men can neither vote, 
nor act in other ways with a high degree 
of intelligence. 



POLITICAL PARTIES — CONSERVATIVE 
AND PROGRESSIVE 

♦||T is a matter of common knowledge that 

11 in all nations called ''civilized" there are 

two political parties. By whatever name 

they may be popularly known, their cause is 

the same everywhere. 

Their formation and existence is due to two 
types of mind — the conservative and the pro- 
gressive — the more satisfied and the less satis- 
fied — the two classes into which human beings 
are naturally divided. 

Between these two groups Nature seems to 
have made no distinct line of demarcation. 
Each approaches the other over a wide space 
in which they intermingle, shade, and blend 
until at their theoretical meeting they become 

—15— 



one. Within this blending space, within the 
mind maze of this middle area, a knowledge 
of party principles evidently has not become 
clearly evolved, and voters fail to distinguish 
party differences. 

Therefore, as in all our attempts to read the 
meaning of the facts of life by critical exam- 
ination we must resort to a somewhat arbi- 
trary segregation or classification, artificial 
lines must be drawn. 

Life may be viewed as a variegated whole, 
moving into mutually blending groups, un- 
divided by visible lines. 

And, although no distinct dividing lines can 
be found, general marks, that enable investi- 
gators to locate groups and to determine the 
law of their life action, can be found. 

In order to understand the relative com- 
munity value of the two parties, their prin- 
ciples, and what the practice of these prin- 
ciples tends to produce, must be fully grasped. 

A brief examination of the two parties, 
therefore, is here proposed, having in view 
this discovery. 

Civilization — ^just started — is now entangled 
in the agonies of a rapid evolutionary growth. 

Because the average voter, within this un- 

—16— 



differentiated mass that is spread over the 
blending space between the two parties, 
fails to grasp the principles or ideals of the 
two parties, fails to understand the difference 
in the results to which their practices lead, 
and because he is also emotionally controlled, 
a great amount of political quackery is able 
to thrive. 

And political quackery must thrive till 
such time as a majority, by understanding the 
difference in the motives, the actuating prin- 
ciples of the two parties, can see how dif- 
ferent in kind must be the products of their 
legislation. 

The party attachments of a voting majority 
are not determined by a knowledge of party 
principles. Party ideals have but little to 
do with the way men vote. This is determined 
by their feelings, by the party preferences of 
their families, by the way their fathers voted, 
or it may be due to the way some clever cam- 
paign sophist, with his fabrication of half 
truths and false premises, makes a certain 
large element believe, and in particular to the 
way his emotional delivery makes them feel 
that they should vote. 

The world is filled with great libraries, but 

—17— 



since all of the body of knowledge with which 
it is so well supplied is not in the minds of 
men, this knowledge is of comparatively lit- 
tle use. As a rule, the many reject theories 
and learn better ways of life — they form and 
adopt the use of improved ideals by being 
driven to do so. Most men, before they can 
do the right thing, must suffer the conse- 
quences of doing the wrong thing many times. 

Were voters (by having a knowledge in 
common of the best information available) 
united in action, instead of being, as they are, 
divided by a thousand and one conflicting 
opinions, few of which have much scientific 
value, continuous and rapid social improve- 
ment would be a simple matter. 

The two types of mind mentioned form 
men into conflicting or opposed groups, clubs, 
societies, churches, and political parties, and 
they are the two great competitive factors of 
social and moral evolution, — the later products 
of the same cause that has worked through 
countless ages to carve out organic forms. 

Struggle among individuals has an awaken- 
ing effect; slowly it teaches men wisdom and 
honesty. The struggle between parties grad- 

—18— 



ually brings knowledge and honesty into 
community action. 

Were we all wise enough, to be honest and 
to do our best voluntarily, two parties would 
be unnecessary. A united effort to put in 
practice a progressive conservatism would then 
rapidly approach an ideal social condition. 
The use of party alternation is to correct 
mistakes and to compete for honesty — a need 
that is due wholly to a great and fundamental 
lack of wisdom and honesty. 

The principles or ideals of the two parties, 
therefore, must be examined in their funda- 
mental action if we are to see how and why 
they differ — ^why it is that their practices 
tend to bring to the community results so 
very different in kind. 

Having this end in view, then, the first 
question to be asked is: What results do 
conservative practices bring — to what goal do 
the ideals of that party in which men place 
most confidence lead? What is the basic 
principle, the main-spring of conservative 
party action ? Why, by whatever name it may 
be called, is one of the two parties considered 
conservative ? What does it conserve ? In 
so far as it encourages thrift by protecting 

—19— 



the freedom of honest production it is plainly 

true to its trust. 

Neither men nor nations can progress with- 
out retaining their improvements. 

Since, also, all changes are considerably- 
experimental, in order to avoid as many mis- 
takes as possible, these changes, before being 
made, should be carefully considered. This 
is a legitimate conservatism and is the aim 
of both parties. 

But there are two competing political 
groups, two parties, and there is an undeniable 
difference in their action and in the products 
of their legislation. What and why? 

This difference must be due to a difference 
of motive or tendency. 

The dominating proclivity of careful men is 
to become thrifty, successful, and comfortable. 
The conserving individual naturally adopts 
the conservative side in politics — he dislikes 
change and disturbance, and, to him, con- 
servative party rule means stability — he likes 
his comfortable habits. 

Conservative men and women, therefore, as 
well as conservative parties, are much more 
apt to become the mastered victims of their 
habits than those of the opposite type. 

—20— 



There is in the progressive party a large 
element of the thriftless, dissatisfied, uncom- 
fortable, and prodigal sort. And they join 
the liberals because they desire to be bene- 
fited by change; they protest against the ex- 
isting condition of things for the reason that 
they are the victims of its unfairness. 

The fact of their being here on this earth, 
however, has a meaning — it must entitle them 
to an opporunity to express themselves and 
to enjoy life as best they may. This they 
feel. But through the maze of legislative jug- 
glery they fail to see how, by monopolies, 
they have been deprived of this right. 

Thrifty persons, as a rule, make much more 
comfortable friends and citizens than thrift- 
less and complaining radicals, but, as factors 
of human progress, this latter element is the 
other side of the shield, or of the question; 
and, as a factor of progress, this element must 
have value. 

Thrift has concealed within it a tendency 
to become a habit of miserliness, or to develop 
into a greedy ambition, hence, it needs watch- 
ing. Few have learned how to control and 
use success. Perhaps, not as a rule but often, 

—21— 



success is allowed to become an un-breakable 

habit of selfishness. 

In all the walks of life pleasing experiences 
call for repetition, the tendency of which is 
to produce a habit sufficiently strong to master 
the will. This accomplished, the feelings call 
for an over-indulgence that brings trouble — 
such as selfishness, forgetfulness of others, 
lack of human sympathy, over-eating, and 
sickness. 

The pleasant ways of least resistance wear 
deep fossilizing habit ruts, mental valleys, in 
which men and women become lazier, and out 
of which they must be pulled and kicked by 
suffering, or remain there and die — they have 
too little strength, as a rule, to climb out of 
their own accord. 

It is through their continuous success that 
parties become degenerate, forgetful of the 
rights of others, selfish, and ambitiously dis- 
honest. 

Party success creates a party desire for 
ever greater power over the affairs of men. 
When, to secure this end, wealth-producing 
opportunities have been monopolized by its 
members, the desire for supremacy intensifies 

—22— 



into an appetite so all-absorbing that satis- 
faction becomes impossible. 

These monopolies produce unchangeableness, 
a rigidity of structure in polities, economics, 
and production, a rigidity that tends more 
and more to resist improvement and to 
strangle national life. This needs to be under- 
stood and watched. 

The science and the art of education are 
but matters of breaking bad, obsolete, out- 
of-date, or non-progressive habits on the one 
hand, and on the other, of forming better, 
constructive, progressive habits. To the ex- 
tent that this result is accomplished by a 
given legislative act does this act have valu^. 
There is value in law only so far as it checks 
predation and protects freedom to act in con- 
structive and moral ways. 

All acquisitions are legitimate that leave 
men opportunity and prejudice-free — they are 
matters of human expression. Change in the 
way of construction and reconstruction is the 
way in which Nature moves life into higher 
forms of expression. 

So, if men are to progress, they must learn, 
and have a chance to break their unfit habits, 
as well as to form better-fitting ones. 

—23— 



The best use of great wealth has been 
learned by few men. In their ignorance, 
wealthy men form bad habits, and also in 
ignorance they are "iinable to break them. 
"Wealth, and in a particular way, unjustly ac- 
quired wealth, tends to create in the mind 
of its holders political ambition, and, with 
no sort of fitness, such aspirants often gain 
what they desire. 

The career of this type is familiar to all. 
Knowing nothing of the morality of public 
service, of what constitutes honorable states- 
manship, their efforts are devoted entirely to 
personal gain. In fact, since they believe that 
this is what they are in office for, they be- 
lieve also that personal gain may be legiti- 
mately secured by any means at hand. They 
lack the right amount of intelligence. 

This type is, as a rule, in the majority 
among law makers, and it follows that, when 
laws have been enacted to monopolize the 
larger part of the means of human sub- 
sistence (land) and to control the currency, 
by a lack of morality as well as of knowledge, 
they have a consuming ambition to gain 
control of the daily lives of men and women — 
to superintend even their personal conduct. 

— 24r— 



This explains wliat we find to be the facts 
of conservative party history, what we find 
as the results of its legislation — a monopolistic 
system that has paralyzed production and dis- 
tribution — a system of ignorance and dis- 
honesty, fixed upon the simple, un-informed 
minds who trusted it in the belief that its 
leaders were wise and would act with a fair 
amount of honesty. 

If conservative party principles stimulate 
its leaders to preserve some good, they also 
furnish them with a pretext for resisting need- 
ed changes, and for the creation and fortifica- 
tion of special privileges. Hence, we have a 
rigid political structure that resists the de- 
mand of progress. As evidence of which 
there can be seen idleness, strikes, poverty, 
crime, and other modes of discontent, all in- 
dicative of deprivations, of wrong. Our gov- 
ernment, though not quite to the extent of 
older governments, has become an out-of-date 
machine, prematurely aged. 

Conservative parties do much more mischief 
than progressive parties, for they are more 
trusted and not so closely watched. They 
are protected in their mischief by the inert- 

—25— 



ness, the lack of information, and the er- 
roneous beliefs of men. 

The financial support of the conservative 
party comes from the well-to-do, from the 
minority constituency who are comfortable in 
the enjoyment of their possessions, and who, 
as a matter of course, are conservative. Since 
most of what they are enjoying is the income 
of special privileges, of respectable, time- 
honored usurpation, they resent changes that 
threaten to take away any portion of their 
unjustly acquired holdings, changes that have 
in view restoration to those to whom these 
holdings rightly belong. 

As we proceed with this essay it will be- 
come ever plainer how and why it is that con- 
servatives and their leaders are able to make 
themselves believe that their conduct in this 
betrayal of trust is justifiable. 

They are led by favoring circumstances into 
the belief that they are the superior ones, and 
consequently to infer that they are hereby the 
naturally appointed protectors of the many. 
Having, to start with, some ability, considerable 
selfishness, and an over-supply of egotism, these 
proclivities become intensified into colossal 
proportions through the wealth of others, 

—26— 



which these men have betrayed their trusts 
to obtain. It is to this, more than to their 
natural superiority, that their attitude is 
due. Herein lies the secret of the decay of 
nations through the survival of the unfit, 
the back numbers, who prevent moral growth 
and extinguish nations. 

It does not come within the scope of this 
brief essay to give party histories; these are 
here unnecessary, for there is abundance of 
information within easy reach of the reader. 
Conservative parties have always been farther 
from impartial representation than liberal 
parties. 

Why, when seen from the viewpoint of 
wealth production and distribution, conserva- 
tive parties have always served the few at 
the expense of the many, is very plain. 

It is due to the conservative's good opinion 
of himself and his party, on the one hand, and 
to his contempt for the progressive and his 
party, on the other. The fact that the con- 
servative party is made up of the more pros- 
perous and the better educated leads the con- 
servative to believe that this is due to a 
superiority which the units of his party do not 
possess. What men are is largely due to cir- 

—27— 



cumstances, opportunities, means, education — 
to matters over which they have had little 
control. 

Men thus favored gravitate, as a rule, to 
the conservative side, and here use these ad- 
vantages to selfish ends — ^use them regardless 
of fairness. 

The failure of most individuals of which 
the conservative party is composed to under- 
stand how they happen to be what they are 
is one of the factors by which the party is 
led into all sorts of unfair acts of legisla- 
tion. 

The belief that their membership is one of 
innate superiority once established, there fol- 
lows a belief that their party, also, is 
equipped with sufficient superiority to endow 
it with prerogative rights. 

This stage of belief once reached, there is 
no place to stop, and the way is open for any 
sort of delusion to creep in and to set up the 
extreme of unfair party conduct. 

If the membership of the conservative party 
is of a quality sufficiently superior to entitle 
it to party prerogatives — and the great major- 
ity need and should have a party guardian — 
the conservative party is in this respect equip- 

—28— 



ped by Nature with a moral fitness, is en- 
dowed with a function which it must not 
neglect. If this is true, as many of its mem- 
bers evidently believe, it is the duty of this 
party to place itself in power by whatever 
means may seem best to its leaders. 

To determine the majority vote, they have 
not merely a right, but it becomes hereby their 
duty to control educational channels through 
the matter in text books, to control the daily 
press, the platform, and the pulpit, for, Jesuit- 
ically speaking, ''the end justifies the means." 

This, as a matter of fact, is what, to a large 
extent, takes place and it explains how it is 
that the political opinions of the many are 
formed in such a way as to make them vote 
to fleece themselves, and how they are made 
to pay a high price for their false education. 
The cheap way to purchase votes is through 
the channels of education. 



-29— 



WHY CONSERVATIVES HOLD A 
MAJORITY 

♦||T is certainly due to a lack of the right 
II information that in their feelings, the 
majority of men are in sympathy with the 
conservative party. 

This party is composed of two elements, 
the wealthy or well-to-do, and the unintel- 
ligent of those who are poor — the managed. 
The latter, blinded by their own selfishness, 
by their meagre and erroneous instruction, fail 
to recognize their party friends. But, desir- 
ing to be on the winning side, to attain this 
end, they resort to all sorts of connivances 
but the right one, even to playing the part of 
the toady. They hope some time to be pluto- 
crats, but they know too little to accomplish 
the desired result legitimately, and by their 
own efforts. Hence, lacking self-reliance, 
they resort to attachments (note the names of 
children and of businesses.) This class has no 
initiative. It fears that any change will make 
matters worse, and, being lazy, it dislikes to 
be disturbed. 

That which determines a man, rich or poor, 
to play his party game of life with the con- 

—30— 



servatives is due very largely to a desire to 
be on tlie side that secures wealth, a desire to 
walk in the comfortable way, to obtain the 
means to triumph over others, and to be 
looked upon as a superior. Men of this type 
lack sympathy, a lack which unquestionably 
places the individual in a low order of human 
unfoldment. In such minds there can be com- 
paratively little desire to promote thrift and 
to extend common justice. 

These feelings are rooted in barbarism, in 
an old order of animal naturalness, that time 
and education will replace with a higher hu- 
man and moral naturalness. 

The only way to get rid of greed, ''want 
and the fear of want," is to become so far 
enlightened as to realize and to act on the 
realization that there is in the world more 
than enough for everybody. 

In proportion to that which we know do 
we form correct ideals of conduct. These 
ideals we approach in practice as fast as we 
are driven to do so by suffering. The active 
power behind all conduct — that which oper- 
ates knowledge, sets up practice, prompts to 
an effort to reach the ideal — is feeling, and 
feeling is the product of suffering. 

—31— 



The evils entailed by selfish practices in 
time teach their folly, and drive man through 
suffering into sympathy with his neighbor, 
and to the correction of his errors in thought 
and conduct. 

This is the stage across which the human 
family is now moving in its unfoldment. 
Ignorance, the failure of men to perform as 
well as they know, and the indulgence of sel- 
fishness, explain all the turmoils and horrors 
of today. 

Yet it seems evident that all men are at 
first unconsciously impulsed to seek the needs 
of their educational unfoldment, and that 
later the means of this unfoldment are sought 
consciously. But, while they are crossing 
the stage of selfishness, their experiences must 
necessarily be of a drastic nature. Men must 
be driven by the tortures that inevitably fol- 
low error into feeling for others. 

Learning to be democratic in feeling, then, 
is a slow process and the suffering caused by 
arbitrary conservative rule is one of its 
greatest promotive factors. 

Therefore, (and it is evidently in the great, 
purposeful scheme of things that it should be 
so) conservative parties come into control 

—32— 



oftener, remain there longer, and abuse the 
power given to them more flagrantly by 
monopolizing most of the wealth of the land, 
than do those with progressive principles. 

Careful search will reveal evidence of pur- 
pose in every fact of life, though all of the 
purpose herein is not at once evident. Dis- 
covery is a gradual process. 

The fact that the majority of men put 
greater confidence in conservative than in 
progressive parties can be explained and easily 
understood by the well-informed, but, where 
intelligence is lacking, information is, as a 
matter of course, useless. 

The majority are not well-informed, and, 
since they will not volunteer to learn, it re- 
quires generations of suffering in the school 
of experience to teach them the rudiments of 
practical economics. In fact, it requires gen- 
erations of suffering to teach men anything 
that takes much mental effort. 

Simple as is the matter of discovering which 
party tends, through the working of its prin- 
ciples, to befriend the many, the latter learn 
to adopt the right one only by being driven 
to do so through suffering. 

Were voters united in action by the pos- 

—33— 



session in common of the best information 
available, instead of being divided as they 
now are by a thousand and one conflicting 
opinions, few of which have any rational 
value, reform of all sorts would be a simple 
matter. 

The person so little informed as to sub- 
scribe to most popular beliefs in politics, 
economics, and religion can be made during 
an exciting campaign or revival to act upon 
any sort of stupid, foolish suggestion. 

When in want and suffering, the many de- 
mand a change without knowing what to do 
to bring about relief. They are moved to 
action, not by what they know, but by what 
they feel, and this move in the matter of 
balloting is nearly as often foolish as wise. 

The instinct and the education of the dog 
is to bite the approaching stranger, to pro- 
tect his yard, and in so doing, he, being un- 
able to reflect discriminatingly, may and he 
often does bite a good friend of the family to 
which he belongs and a possible friend of his 
own. And so it is with men who are moved 
to action by feeling alone. 

However, it is this need of the many, driv- 
ing them in times of desperation into blind 

—34— 



mass-action, that determines mnch of the legis- 
lation of progressive party leaders. It is this 
need that furnishes this party with a pro- 
pelling principle that fosters more or less of 
an endeavor on its part to improve general 
conditions and to preserve a greater plasticity 
of political structure, a greater possibility or 
freedom of improving change; and it is this 
need that gives it a better chance to displace 
the ante-dated machine with the improved 
variety. 

Therefore, when the principles of the two 
parties have been learned, what different re- 
sults their practices tend to bring! Or bet- 
ter, when, in its educational evolution, the 
race has reached the stage where a majority 
of the voting units can see and understand 
the working differences, there will come a 
radical change in which conservative party 
dominance will abruptly cease. 

Thereafter, instead of being used through 
their thoughtless, emotional, and foolish party 
attachments to serve the personal ambitions 
of the party leaders of any party, men will 
be guided by reason and will act to serve 
humanity as the larger part of their own 
welfare. 



WHY MEN FEAR PROGRESSIVE PARTY 
ADMINISTRATION 

CONSTITUTIONAL governments change 
from conservative to progressive admin- 
istrations only when driven in despera- 
tion to do so. And, when the transfer of 
control has been made, voters know neither 
what must be done to improve matters nor 
when, to this end, changes have been made, 
how much time is need to get the new regime 
into operation and secure the desired results. 

That is, voters, the employers, know noth- 
ing of what to expect from their employes, 
those whom they select to make reform 
moves and to conduct them to a successful 
termination. 

Therefore, the impatient many, looking for 
improvement to arrive with impossible quick- 
ness, resent delay of results as pictured in 
expectation upon the canvas of their absurd 
imagination. 

It is due to their inertness and simplicity, 
to their lack of information, that breaks for 
freedom are delayed by the majority till 
men are bound hand and foot — and the 
moment they are ready to cry ''enough," they 
look for immediate release; they expect the 

—36— 



cure of their physical ills, brought upon 
themselves by long-time abuses, with the 
same miraculous quickness. 

Hence, the history of progress has been one 
long and continuous struggle of the drowsy 
ones to break the shackles they have allowed 
to be placed upon them by the rule of con- 
servative injustice. Of course the conservative 
element always leads, but the injustice of this 
''lead" is found in the fact that the many 
are taught by antidote or torture and are 
made to pay more for being led and taught 
than the leadership and education are worth, 
and thus an injury is done to both parties. 

The forward move of progress is through 
forms of expression, but the old and com- 
paratively useless forms should be replaced by 
higher ones, by improved varieties, the mo- 
ment the old have served their purposes. 

The preservation of progress has always de- 
pended upon, and still depends upon, the ef- 
forts of a few unselfish leaders and educators, 
builders of new ideals — a service paid for, as 
a rule, in misunderstanding, if not in persecu- 
tion. The difference between a leader who 
does not care what becomes of the many be- 
cause he does not know why he does not care, 

—37— 



and the one who does care because he knows 
why he cares and feels it, is as great as the 
difference between total darkness and sun- 
light. 

In every land there are individuals amount- 
ing to a small percentage of the entire popu- 
lation who are not insulted by charity, and 
there are others who see in "tips" no degre- 
dation, even when these are taken as a means 
of subsistence. 

But so it is with appeals made to different 
grades of human intelligence. An argument 
appearing to be sound at one stage of a man's 
unfoldment is seen to be so ridiculously fal- 
lacious at his next higher stage of gained in- 
telligence as to be an insult. 

Hence, it is true that the campaign speeches 
of conservative parties, more than those of 
progressive parties, are made, less to enlighten 
the majority, than to prepare them to vote 
to fleece themselves by placing most of their 
natural opportunities in the hands of monop- 
olists. Yet not over twenty-five per cent of 
the voting population are sufficiently informed 
in party history, land monopoly, national 
finance and economics, to realize that these 
speeches are an insult. 

—38— 



This lack of enlightenment explains why it 
is that conservative parties are able to hold 
the confidence of a working majority. The 
rule is to judge a party by superficial evi- 
dence, and of individuals by their external 
appearances and immediate influence. Be- 
sides, men are, for this same reason of short 
measure, very susceptible to flattery. 

Confidence in the conservative party is 
greatly strengthened by suggestion as em- 
bodied in its claim to preserve to a greater 
degree than does the progressive party the 
existing order of things, to resist change, to 
stand for stability. And since the many have 
been taught to fear change, this claim and 
belief is a powerful factor in holding control. 

But this conservative claim, even if found 
to be supported by a few facts, may not be 
altogether desirable, for, unless the hold 
of resistance to needed change can be broken 
by either intelligence or by social upheaval, 
it strangles national life and leads to the 
stability of death. Change is the only evi- 
dence we have of life. 

In a moving equilibrium, in an alive and 
wide-awake stability, in a bettering change, 

—39— 



are found the true conservatism and the true 
progressivism. 

The central government of a nation should 
be a moral power of such strength as to 
elevate the ideals and to stimulate the moral 
life of the entire nation, an influence that 
should elevate even its business life. What, 
for the past fifty years, has been the influence 
radiating from the city of Washington, our 
national Capital? 

The conservative party undoubtedly con- 
serves, but what does it conserve? Is it 
honest? Does it seek and conserve the best? 
Does it admit and conserve progress? Does 
it tend to promote intelligence, moral con- 
duct, higher ideals? Does it give justice and 
increase the sum of human happiness? 

On the contrary, do we not find that a very 
large part of conservative party effort is 
expended in creating^ and conserving special 
privileges, the property holding of 'Hhe 
haves," at the expense of those who ''have 
not?" And does not this tend to corrupt 
men by placing a premium on dishonesty? 
Who pays the taxes? Ascertain before you 
answer. 

But little investigation is required to re- 

—40— 



veal the fact that conservatives much more 
than progressives do monopolize and hold out 
of use the natural opportunities of the many. 

Take no one's word for this, but look up 
the history of the conservative (Republican) 
party in our own country during the past fifty 
years and discover what this party has done 
to place the land in a few hands. "What do 
you know about this, and what are you going 
to know? 

The less one knows, the more does he be- 
lieve in and look for miracles, and, since 
the monopolists are conservatives, the moment 
their party finds itself in the control of af- 
fairs, they have the means to begin perform- 
ing the ''good- times" miracles which their 
blind, simple, and easily satisfied constituents 
have been looking for. Monopoly holds the 
wealth, controls the machinery and media of 
its production and distribution. 

The amount of wealth produced in this 
country is beyond average comprehension, and 
the amount that freedom from land monopoly 
would allow to be produced is utterly beyond 
the imagination of those who look upon a 
thousand dollars as a fortune. The power of 
the labor-saving machine to produce belongs to 

—41— 



all, not to a few who hold the means of its 
application (the land) out of use. With their 
tremendous monopoly, conservatives can offer 
to their constituents the insult of paternalism 
— ^they can paralyze business with high rents 
and monopolized currency. 

Fatherly party protection is still believed in 
by many who are not yet well enough informed 
to realize that it is an insult to human intel- 
ligence, that its power over men is due to 
an attitude of mind that follows from habit 
of thought and from monopoly as causes. 
The proper function of a government is to 
protect the freedom of its units to act pro- 
ductively, not to take away this freedom by 
monopolizing opportunities. 

If I, while acting as your guardian, find 
that your lack of intelligence enables me to 
steal your fortune without your being aware 
of the fact, I can make a great show of doling 
out to you by means of a job or by charity a 
meagre subsistence, and I can secure your 
friendship until you learn the truth. 

Until such time as the individual is suf- 
ficiently well informed to see that this is a 
precise parallel of conservative party methods 

—42— 



of operation in all lands, he is not morally 
entitled to the use of the ballot. 

This it is that needs to be understood by 
all voters. The only protection needed by 
the many is enlightenment sufficient to give 
them access to their own natural opportun- 
ities and to show them their uses. 

This is now denied by our infamous laws 
of monopoly. Free competition, the thing 
needed, has never been in operation since 
the beginning of organized governments. 

The process of human awakening, though 
rapidly increasing, will yet require a long 
time of monopolistic insult, deprivation, and 
suffering, before the stage is reached where 
the ballot will be used intelligently. 

The things which, individually, we know too 
little to do for ourselves must be done for us 
by others. Prior to a certain age, we are 
unable to don our own clothes. 

In adult life the many opportunities by 
which we are surrounded but fail to recog- 
nize and use must be seen and improved for 
us by others at a pittance of benefit to our- 
selves—we must be shown and made jealous 
before we can act. But so it is with things 
we might use to make life better worth liv- • 



ing, things which we fail to utilize for the 
reason that we do not know enough and are 
too indolent to learn. 

The present poverty-stricken condition of 
the many is due to a poverty of mind that 
blinds them to the fact of their own heritage 
and to the appropriation and prodigal use 
of this heritage by a few men. The many 
fail to see how and by what legislative 
chicanery they have been deprived of their 
natural rights; they fail to see how the op- 
portunities in which they were once rich 
beyond their dreams have been taken from 
them; they fail to see how by the same 
method of usurpation their labor-saving ma- 
chinery is kept idle, and how the com- 
paratively small amount which monopoly al- 
lows to be produced is held beyond their 
reach by a few trade monopolists, high 
rents, entombed currency, and a paralyzed 
distributing system. 

If this be true, it may be asked, *' Through 
what means has all this come about?" 

It is true, and the way this condition has 
been brought about is as follows: Through 
a combination of design and lack of in- 
formation there is in operation in nearly 

Id 



all schools, both public and private, a con- 
spiracy realized by few against true edu- 
cation and progress. 

By neglect and by refusal children have 
been denied, and they are still being denied, 
that information to which every child has a 
right as inalienable as to that of life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness. 

In fact, without this information, true life, 
liberty, and happiness are impossible. Exist- 
ing conditions, under which no person is 
truly happy, conclusively show this. 

This lack, or educational perversion, explains 
why it is that in all lands men have more 
confidence in conservative than in progressive 
parties, why conservative parties are so fully 
trusted, and why they are given time to 
become corrupt through the appropriation of 
natural opportunities. It is because of their 
ignorance that the great body of men look 
upon their party as a guardian rather than 
as a servant. And at their own cheap esti- 
mate of themselves they are taken and used 
by the conservative party. 

The many consent to remain in ignorance, 
they take a prescribed education, they listen 

—45-- 



to the flattery of those who like to ''boss,'* 
and they become underlings. 

This explains why monopolists look upon 
themselves as men having an innate rather 
than a circumstantial fitness to be the natural 
guardians of the people, and upon the conserv- 
ative party as their legitimate instrument of 
use to serve this end. It explains why con- 
servatives believe that they are the superior 
class, why they develop a feeling of proprietor- 
ship in government, and why they so far resent 
all liberating movements as to consider them 
intrusions. 

Nature has this attitude of mind in process 
of correction. All men must gradually awak- 
en to the fact that human life is slowly 
moving competitively in the direction of a 
greater intelligence, of individual freedom, of 
personal consent, of democracy and morality; 
and, also, that contemporaneously and conse- 
quently, it is leaving behind its opposite — 
monarchy, plutocracy, aristocracy, paternal- 
ism, prohibition, coercion, tyranny, espionage, 
and injustice. This passing will be hastened 
in proportion to the rate of speed with which 
intelligence is gained. 

There is a growing strength of feeling that 

-46— 



the tyranny of dominant political parties and 
religions, through their senseless and arbi- 
trary rules of belief, is allowed to remain 
in operation altogether too long. The doom 
of these systems should, in the interest of 
human happiness, have been long since pro- 
nounced by common consent. But they are 
passing. 

The meaning and use of this great evolv- 
ing scheme of life is ever before us. Nature 
always kills that which she is no longer able 
to improve with experience, and she uses 
the pulverized material of her dead bodies 
to build progressive forms. Because it can- 
not be taught to live among men without 
interfering with human rights, the rat is 
doomed to final extinction. But, for many 
reasons, it has some time yet to stay, and it is 
helping us just now to construct ever better 
buildings. 

All these advantages through which men 
attempt to gain something for nothing, to 
attain prosperity at the expense of others, to 
gain legal power over their fellows, are very 
grave mistakes — ^rat proclivities. They are 
advantages that give rise in the minds of 
those who secure them, in the minds of men 

--47— 



and bodies of men, an over-estimate of them- 
selves. 

The bully, the tyrant, the plutocrat, and 
the monarch are thus all accounted for — 
and in its final analysis the fruit of legal 
robbery is some form of half-educated 
tyrant. 

Usurpation creates in the mind of the 
usurper a false ideal, a feeling that '* might 
is right," a belief that his blue blood means 
pure blood, when it really means a lack of 
exercise and corruption. Being blind to the 
cause of the advantages he enjoys, blind to 
the way they were obtained, perhaps, he 
nevertheless believes himself hereby appoint- 
ed to be the natural leader and director of 
the affairs of other men. So the usurper 
becomes in his feelings a plutocrat and has 
time to think up mischief. 

The usurper, as a rule, is led to his down- 
fall through the prodigal use of that which 
he takes from others. If not to his own 
downfall, he is led to attempt the enslavement 
of those whom he despoils. Give to men of 
this type enough "rope" and they will hang 
either themselves or someone else. A big, 
legal thief becomes a big tyrant, if allowed 

—48— 



an opportunity, and a little illegal thief, a 
coward. 

The bulk of wealth of the land is held 
by men, prominent in or leaders of the con- 
servative party. There is among them a 
feeling of comradeship, an affinity tie of 
honor among those who appropriate. 

Their possessions carry with them an in- 
fluence of glamour over the dispossessed. So, 
controlling, as they do, that which will in- 
sure their succession to control, whenever 
their flagrant abuse of trust has driven them 
from office, they are not at all alarmed as to 
their return to power. 

*' Distance lends enchantment to the view" 
is a brief statement of a truth having a very 
wide application in the affairs of unthinking 
men and women. That is, distance, money, 
desirable occupation, fine garments, showy 
surroundings, good reputation, theatrical at- 
tire, gaudy colors, artistic gesture, emotional 
speech, fine manners, assumed dignity, high 
prices — all these lend a stage effect, a ro- 
mantic glamour that tends to emotionally sub- 
due the average mind. 

Distance, either in time or space, lends 
enchantment. Hence, green fields, when 



viewed from afar, have azure tints and ap- 
pear to be smooth. Dead men, and men in 
distant cities, seem wiser than the living or 
than those who are close at hand. 

Why, then, need we wonder at men in of- 
fice or at men with abundance of means, 
when, favored by all the laws of the land, 
they become possessed by the illusion that 
they are the superior ones of the earth? 
They are not only tremendously flattered 
by others, but also by themselves, and they 
are permitted no time to gain a knowledge 
of their immoral position among men. 

Ground rent collectors, though seldom 
students, understand the art of getting and 
holding. They belong, as a rule, to the sport- 
ing or semi-sporting order, and their spare 
time is monopolized in such manner by flat- 
terers that they do not and cannot estimate 
themselves at their true value. They are 
social perversions and soon become a menace. 

The glamour of life should be corrected in 
great degree by imagination guided by in- 
telligence. A lack of intelligence explains 
conditions as we find them. Men are dom- 
inated by the stage illusions of life because 

—50— 



they know too little to understand what 
exists behind the scenes. 

Enough voters with no measure, or with 
a false measure, of conduct and of the other 
values of life, hold the balance of power and 
stand ready with their ballots to serve for 
small consideration almost any selfish, preda- 
tory, wholesale scheme of legal, monopolistic 
thieving or graft which the "bosses'' whom 
they serve may select. 

Ignorance makes the purchase price of 
many men cheap, and keeps the products of 
human effort and the medium of exchange 
and distribution — money — in the control of 
a few ambitious and unscrupulous hands. 
With this leverage in the form of a system 
these men can, in order to serve their personal 
selfishness and their party ends, make times 
either good or bad; and, if, when out of of- 
fice, they wish to return to power, they can 
proceed with a campaign of "squeeze" in 
order to frighten the border-land rabble back 
to the conservative camp. 

This is a matter well known to the in- 
telligent and it explains why progressive 
parties are feared by the masses. 

The latter have experienced stringency; 

—51— 



they have seen ''hard times''; they have 
seen thousands lose their homes through 
mortgage foreclosure ; they have seen idle men 
and needy families increase in number; they 
have seen business go down and rents stay 
up with immediate consequences in an epi- 
demic of failures and suicides. 

They have witnessed all these and many of 
the other effects accompanying progressive 
administrations, but without understanding. 

Being wholly without either enlightening 
information or the ability to manage more 
than one idea with a single effort, they fail 
to see the ''why," the cause of the effects 
in which they are submerged, and by which 
they are blinded and made to suffer. 



PROGRESSIVE PARTY HANDICAPS 

♦fJ^ENCE, the progressives come into power 
11%/ when the conservatives or absorptives 
have appropriated about everything of 
value in sight, at a time when the most obtuse 
can see the tremendous need for a political 
house-cleaning. 

—52— 



When measured by the possibilities offered 
by educational opportunity, general intel- 
ligence is not yet high in any country. Vot- 
ers, therefore, are unable to understand the 
great amount of rubbish that must first be 
cleared away, the abuses that must be stopped 
and corrected, and, simultaneously, the tre- 
mendous reform-opposing forces, armed with 
special-privileged wealth, that must be met 
and defeated before the prosperity machinery 
of the country can be set up and put in 
operation. 

During progressive administrations the 
country is always passing through an ex- 
perience similar to a fever, through what re- 
sembles a siege of sickness so evidently 
brought on by conservative abuses in the 
way of predations as to admit of no mistake 
in assigning the cause. 

Most recoveries from illness and convales- 
ence require cessation of work. Imagine then 
the difficulty accompanying the recovery and 
convalesence of a patient who, while work- 
ing, takes treatment from two doctors — one 
trying to cure him, the other trying to pre- 
vent a cure. 

This, however, parallels very closely the 

—53-- 



difficulty with which a progressive political 
party in its administration is obliged to con- 
tend. The conservatives, being largely in 
control of the money market, can also control 
the productive and distributive forces — lands, 
labor, money, and transportation. 

Hence, the moment the conservatives are 
ousted from office, they are able, assisted by 
the fears of voters, to begin their campaign 
of return by making men idle and hungry. 
This is an argument that never fails to 
bring back into conservative lines men who 
think as their stomachs feel. 

The majority of those who, in their desper- 
ation, vote to return governmental control to 
progressive hands fail to see that they are 
turning over to this party a commonwealth 
whose political state of health corresponds 
very closely to that of an invalid with im- 
peded circulation, with starved tissues, with 
drugged and disordered functions. 

Consequently, if in progressive hands time 
is taken to cure and convalesce, if pros- 
perity slows down (as it must, instead of 
suddenly reappearing), resentment is shown 
by returning at the next election the con- 
servatives to power. The well-known pro- 

—54— 



cedure of this party on return to office is to 
begin a sudden show of prosperity, to begin 
to please the simple trinket-loving minds 
with "good times" chocolate drops that 
consist of the nimble penny — in exchange for 
their big, slow dollars. 

Eeform, under such a condition of the ma- 
jority mind, is very slow and difficult. A 
fairly honest foundation is no more than well 
laid by a liberating rule when it is torn up, 
cast aside, and one less honest is put in its 
place. In rationality of reform procedure the 
process here employed is about equal to the 
regrafting of an orchard every four years. 

Eeform administrations are kicked out be- 
fore they have had time to prepare and to 
put in operation more than a fraction of 
the needed changes. Nobody, therefore, ever 
realizes how much these changes, were they 
given time in which to work, would do to im- 
prove matters. 

This party alternation, in which there is 
much change with little improvement, is 
due to the fact that the bulk of voting is a 
combination of feeling and of guess-work. 

Given a practical knowledge of economics, 
a greater amount of political reform could be 

—55— 



secured in eight years than is now gained 
in fifty — and with less trouble. 



KNOWLEDGE OUR FIRST NEED 

<^^HE need of the world, then, is Education 
^^ — Knowledge. And, since the greatest 
difficulty to be met and overcome is the 
information needed to secure the means to 
achieve this educational end, the one on which 
the solution of the balance of the educational 
problem depends, some move to secure and 
place this information in the minds of men 
should be made the object of first consider- 
ation. 

Education is now supported by a dishonest 
system of taxation that secures funds but 
half sufficient to meet our educational needs. 
There must be some way to obtain ample 
means with an honest system. 

Nature is not niggardly. There is abund- 
ance upon which we may draw in quantity 
sufficiently great to meet all requirements. 
And our specific need, in order to discover 
where this fund is hidden, is to acquire a 
knowledge of economics. 

—56— 



A knowledge of the science of wealth pro- 
duction and distribution will enable men to 
realize that the existence of a natural, auto- 
matically-made educational fund is a fact, not 
merely a dream. But why this fund is hid- 
den from general view is that it now and 
always has been flowing into private pockets, 
that it is also hidden by the intangibility of 
its production, by custom, and by familiarity. 
This source of supply is found in ''ground 
rent", and it is amply sufficient, not only for 
the education of all races of men, but also 
for the means to defray all of the expenses of 
government. 

Ground rent, often called the unearned in- 
crement, is a thing most difficult for the ma- 
jority, with their selfish, autocratic desires, 
interest-twisted economics, over-worked bodies, 
self-pity, and eyes befogged by daily-press 
sophistry, to see. 

The first thing, then, of which the ma- 
jority should become aware, is the existence 
of this community-earned wealth — to see that 
it is a fact — to recognize the rights of those 
to whom it naturally belongs. The next step 
taken should be in the direction of the re- 
covery and the return of this rent to its 

—57— 



(morally speaking) rightful owners — to edu- 
cational and governmental channels of use. 

This is a problem, and it is one that is 
not by any means easy to solve, for the booty 
secured by private holders of rent-bearing 
land is too enormous to be given up without 
a tremendous struggle. Ground rent gives 
to its possessors the means with which to 
fight a winning battle against those from 
whom it has been taken. The latter are a 
great company, strong in possibilities, but 
feeble in efficiency through lack of intel- 
ligence. 

However, until such time as ground rent 
is recognized, rescued, and used by those to 
whom it belongs, used for their enlightenment 
and alleviation, until the opportunities of men 
to produce are hereby freed from monopoly, 
no very high grade of intelligence and hap- 
piness can come to any race or nation, for 
the highest expression of life cannot be 
secured by each without justice to all. 

The access of all men to their natural op- 
portunities, the positive refusal of special 
privileges to any, is demanded by justice and 
in the interest of progress. To bring about 

—58— 



this condition is a matter of the evolution 
of intelligence and morality. 

The cause of present uncomfortable con- 
ditions is found in the human mind, in what 
men, in their ignorant, dishonest blindness, 
strive for but do not need. The appropria- 
tion of ground rent robs those from whom it 
is taken and corrupts those who appropriate. 
Hence, private appropriation and use keep 
the entire community in an uproar, and no 
one can be truly happy. 

"While crossing the valley of unfoldment in 
which the desire to triumph over others is 
paramount, men and women become broadened 
sufficiently in sympathy by suffering to reach 
the higher plane of democracy of feeling, 
thus attaining a level that has been reached 
by comparatively few. 

The rule of desire today, then, is that 
where men and women have the courage and 
brightness, have ''foxy" smartness without 
the balancing accompaniment of wisdom and 
honesty, their aspiration is aggressive domin- 
ance, is a longing to usurp the natural rights 
of others, to embarrass their feelings and 
free action — in a word to be autocratic. The 
existence of this condition is due to selfish- 

—59— 



ness, and depends not so mnch upon brains 
as upon a lack of fellow-feeling. 



THE WAY OF MENTAL UNFOLDMENT 

♦||N order to obtain a somewhat more 
11 rational explanation of the facts of life 
as we find them, we are obliged to seek 
it through a deeper analysis. 

It is evident that all life is so impulsed 
and environed as to be enticed and driven 
from the involuntary to the voluntary, from 
blind animal impulse to free human will. 
From here on in human life the move is 
toward increase of intelligence, greater 
justice, higher moral conduct. The higher 
the life, the more keenly does it rebuke in- 
justice with turmoil and suffering, a fact, the 
truth of which few come to fully realize. 

This process, or the unfolding move of 
life's program, is now called evolution. 
Where are we today? What part of the 
program lies behind us — what part be- 
fore us? Where on the way are we, and 
what can be done to hasten the forward 

—60— 



move? Are present discomforts due to a 
lack of unfoldment, that is, to ignorance? 
If so, can this lack be supplied by voluntary- 
effort, by the cultivation of intelligence, by 
education ? 

In what way does intelligence unfold? 
Possibly the reader has noted that in lower 
forms of life animals are attracted by bright 
colors, particularly by red. The unfoldment 
of consciousness starts evidently with the 
contact of mind with matter — it begins with 
the concrete. 

Taking from this point a somewhat long 
stride in order to abridge time and space, 
we pause at the place where many have ob- 
served the fact that a window filled with 
pictures attracts more notice from the passing 
throng than a window filled with books. 
Why? Does not the picture interest more 
persons because, through its simplicity of con- 
cept, it can be more easily grasped by the 
mind, because it better meets the feeble, con- 
crete, or totem-pole requirements character- 
istic of the average mind? 

Mental unfoldment is a biological process 
that consumes countless ages in reaching the 
voluntary stage of action called human con- 

—61— 



duct. The equipment of the mind is evidently 
an evolutionary product, an inherited ac- 
cumulation of concepts. The climb to present 
gain has been through the concrete — through 
Nature's symbols. Mental grasp, conscious- 
ness, at first of the simplest, gradually in- 
creases in complexity. 

It is believable, because evident, that in 
the evolution of the alphabet man must have 
consumed eons of time trying to express 
his ideas to others in pictures. The individ- 
uals who at first had the ability to make 
pictures were extremely few. 

Progress is an accelerating movement; the 
time consumed in the evolution of the al- 
phabet through picture making must have 
been infinitely longer than the time during 
which the alphabet was used to spell words 
and write sentences previous to the inven- 
tion of printing. 

Compared with the evolution of the alpha- 
bet, the art of printing by movable type is a 
thing of yesterday. The increasing com- 
plexity of printed matter is a much more 
rapid process than the unfoldment of the 
great majority of human minds to grasp 

—62— 



this complexity, for the few improve much 
more rapidly than the many. 

Hence, most persons like pictures much 
better than books, since the picture is simple 
in concept, and the love of the picture is an 
ingrained heritage. Comparatively few minds 
have reached the point where they can grasp 
and hold with any high degree of comfort 
the greater complexities and abstractions of 
the printed page. Sufficient time has not 
elapsed since the invention of printing for 
this unfoldment to occur. 

In a book, that which makes it seem heavy 
and tiresome is that which is not under- 
stood. Most of the mystery is concealed in 
unfamiliar words and in abstractions. Nearly 
all of abstract thought escapes the under- 
standing of most readers, since they depend 
largely on the concrete, tangible illustration. 
Books are at best but imperfectly grasped, 
and by piecemeal, not as a whole. 

The best books, therefore, withhold from 
the less intelligent much of that which they 
give to the more intelligent. The book that 
seems heavy to one seems light to another. 
Readers become tired, not so much because 

—63-- 



they lack mental energy as because they 
lack information, intelligence, discernment. 

In the order of evolution, the average 
mind has just passed from mythology to 
modern fiction and to moving pictures. This 
move is almost involuntary, but here it will 
gain strength to reach the age of reason, 
develop an interest in cause, awaken a taste 
for science and philosophy, for matter re- 
quiring more intelligence, greater mental 
power. 

The difficulty experienced by the average 
person in seeing ground rent, in recognizing 
by whom this value is made, to whom it be- 
longs, and the trouble to which its present 
use leads, is due to its being an abstraction, 
a concept beyond the average mental grasp. 

The importance, then, of grouping the ele- 
ments of education around tangible illustra- 
tion is obvious. Consciousness must be 
aroused through the instrumentality of the 
concrete — through contact. 

The educational awakening of the world 
takes place through specialized objects of 
sense, through totem-poles, pictures, symbols, 
flags, banners, streamers, badges, medals, 
mjrthology, stories, sensation, brass bands, 

—64— 



rag-time, the stage, the circus, Santa Clans, 
Mother Goose, through family, religious and 
political turmoil, through graft, fakes, tips, 
charities, and prisons, through group con- 
flict, snobs, tyrants, the sensuous and sensa- 
tional in religion, the Billy Sundays. 

The evolution of a higher consciousness, 
the conception that life has a moral end in 
view — a day of justice and democrary of feel- 
ing — is a slow process. Nature produces 
society by molding the individual. 



FURTHER ANALYSIS 

^^0 the extent to which their cause is 
^^ clearly understood, to the degree that 
the way of their arrival, how they came 
to be here, is understood — to this extent only 
can we correctly infer the meaning of the 
facts of this e very-day life. 

So, to add somewhat more to what has al- 
ready been said in regard to the upward move 
of life, to the emergence of animal life from 
the plant, and of human life from the life 
of the animal, the reader is invited to in- 

—65— 



quire of himself whether the fact that a dog 
can be caused to gain a good or a bad 
opinion of himself by praise or blame may 
have any meaning in the scheme of mental 
evolution. Watch the evidence of the dog's 
belief in his importance as he barks savagely 
at a street car. 

Holding this in mind, observe the boy. 
Note the pleasure he obtains from his trumpet 
and his drum. Watch the Salvation Army 
with its blare, its noise, its color, and its 
show of importance in strength of numbers 
and of union. Opportunities for observing 
these same things in men and in bodies of 
men are unlimited. 

This good opinion of himself, this belief 
that he is doing something very wonderful, 
this desire to attract attention and praise, 
to shake himself before an audience and say, 
''Watch me!" was evidently implanted in 
the individual to lure him onward and up- 
ward. 

Hence the pathway of man's unfoldment, 
or his increase of consciousness, is from the 
more vulgar and noisy to the less vulgar and 
quiet human type, from the tyrant to the 
tolerant, from injustice to justice, from im- 

—66— 



morality to morality, from love of war to 
love of peace. 

The way to determine values is through 
some instrument or principle of measurement. 
What is of value in character, in motives, 
and in conduct is best determined by a knowl- 
edge of evolution. Evolution furnishes the 
best-known key to the interpretation of the 
facts of life. 

In order, then, to detect and to separate 
the more vulgar, less evolved, brought-along- 
from-a-past-age tendencies and habits from his 
every-day life, from his politics, his economics, 
his religion, and his character, while simul- 
taneously cultivating the new and progres- 
sive, the student needs to equip himself with 
a thorough knowledge of evolution. 

Mind, in the early stages of its unfoldment, 
is attracted by and is pleased with noise, 
with rough, harsh, heavy, discordant sounds, 
and with bright colors. 

Man, during his tribal passing, puts feathers 
in his hair, a ring in his nose. Later, for 
stimulation, and for support of his dignity, 
he spices his foods, drinks strong liquors, 
desires to take chances, gambles, lies, thieves, 
brags, is moved by martial music, and in his 

—67— 



most active operations is inspired by feel- 
ings of revenge and hatred. 

The animal man has a strong passion for 
war, an appetite for blood, slaughter, and 
carnage, — for these he considers highest among 
manly qualities. And we are obliged to sus- 
pect at least that all this infernal stupidity 
is retained in involuntary action, because it 
may still have some educational value. 
Vermin are conducive to cleanliness and will 
disappear as rapidly as the need for their 
presence is removed. 

Men of dull conscience and feeling are at- 
tracted by glamour of surroundings. It seems 
necessary that they be enmeshed and held 
spell-bound while they are given a needed 
awakening shock by an experience of great 
suffering. Society obtains the same thing in 
about the same way. 

Though these experiences do not seem to 
be confined to those by whom they are need- 
ed, this may be all in the seeming. 

What we call civilized warfare is but 
evolved savagery — a cultivated barbarism of 
larger proportions, an evidence of early-age, 
left-over primitive man. A particularly 
dangerous type still persists among leaders of 

—68— 



men — ^the tyrant type, a type that the more 
highly evolved must be tortured into under- 
standing in order to eliminate them from 
places of national influence. 

Ill evidence of primitiveness can be heard 
everywhere the stupid arguments of the fight- 
ing element, arguments that tend to arouse 
the martial spirit, preparation, and by what 
inevitably follows — war and slaughter. Also, 
through it all, we behold the psychology of 
crowds, a hypnotised condition of mind. In 
evidence is the assumption of great dignity 
by those engaged as leaders, the pride of uni- 
form, the strut, the staginess, the quick sup- 
pression of rational or sane utterances or pro- 
tests, insults to civilians. All of these mani- 
festations can plainly be observed by a truly 
civilized person, a rational being, and by him 
they are seen to be pitifully ridiculous. They 
are remnants of the dark ages still existent 
among us' they are night-mares, epidemic de- 
lusions, hypnotic spells, "Big Indians" with 
feathers in their hair and rings in their noses. 

Men can feel, but, until they are sufficiently 
well enlightened to be rational beings, until 
they can reason, think, and act with sanity, 
they must at frequent intervals be made to 

—69— 



take on the war spirit and to lust for 
slaughter. 

How long will it be before the world is 
sufficiently enlightened to see that progress, 
the interest of the many, is toward democ- 
racy, to see that dishonesty does not pay, 
to be wise enough to rid itself of delusions 
that lead to such an idiotic and criminal per- 
formance as war? 



IS THERE A BETTER WAY? 

3N seeking a remedy for present ills, ex- 
isting facts must be accounted for. Why 
are things as they are? Is all this fer- 
ment, injustice, suffering, and crime an error 
of creation? Is it a human mistake? Is 
it a mistake at all? Can we not find herein 
a great serving purpose? 

But, on the other hand, is this wreck- 
strewn pathway along which men and na- 
tions are now fighting their way forward 
the only way? Do we need so much of this 
shock embraced in the compulsory education 

—70— 



of experience? Can not a voluntary move 
forward be made the means of securing much 
quicker and better results? 

Is what we are a matter of fate, or have 
we some choice of ways to go, of men to be, 
and of things to have? There is either some 
freedom of action in the human will, or 
education is an impossibility — a delusion. 

Is not this program of life, though pre- 
senting to our view a tremendous variety 
of ways and means to reach ideal ends, in 
the main awaiting our move to select and 
to use for these ends? 

In other words, is not the sphere of action 
now determined by the human will, though 
slowly increasing in size, to date but a 
small one? And are not the larger moves, 
like war, political moves, most individual acts, 
determined by life's involuntary impulse — a 
hidden hand of some sort? 

So far, the unfoldment of human life seems 
to be largely an involuntary process, a move 
in which, by suffering the consequences of 
error, men are driven into voluntary action, 
into intelligent conduct of life, into a move 
of conscious direction. 

It is through the consequences of error, 

—71— 



suffering, that human intelligence is awakened, 
that men are made to think, that their will is 
shocked into free action, that their under- 
standing is awakened to Nature's intent. All 
this, evidently, is, to prepare human beings 
to control their own destinies, to be re- 
sponsible beings. 

The program of life is one of education. 
Men must be honest, but they must also be 
wise, because in the conduct of life more 
harm is done by ignorance than by dishonesty. 

Men do conscious wrong who are either 
unconscious of the natural penalty attached, 
or, if they realize the penalty, they believe 
it can be avoided, shirked. If they do not 
think thus, they have concluded to pay all 
costs and penalties in order to gratify pres- 
ent desire. 

The confusion of today is due to the er- 
ror of dishonesty caused by ignorance. The 
majority of men feel democracy for others, 
but they feel plutocracy for themselves. 

There is a great, a world-desire, to taste 
the sweetness experienced by all small minds 
from ''bossing" — from triumphing over others, 
and from witnessing their discomfiture and 
suffering. 

~72— 



To appear well, to loom as large as 
possible in the eyes of others, by means 
right or wrong, is the ambitious lure of 
vulgar types of mind. Vulgarity lives and 
thrives on the flattery of applause. 

There is nothing wrong either with am- 
bition or with self-esteem except in the selfish, 
predatory use thereof. 

The effort of Nature to teach us to segre- 
gate our conduct into the good and the bad, 
into moral and immoral, into the altruistic 
and the predatory, in order that we may 
adopt the use of the first and discard that 
of the second, offers a very satisfactory ex- 
planation of the ''why" of this tumult of life. 

The line that divides the two classes of 
conduct gradually becomes distinctly ap- 
parent to him who is equipped with right 
motives, with information and right feeling. 

With wisdom comes honesty of purpose, 
good will toward all men, morality and 
democracy educated into feeling with har- 
mony in life and in action. Acts are de- 
termined by ideals, and when ideals are low, 
acts are lower. 

Man, in his early stages of awakening 
to a desire, to be something more than the 

—73— 



average, believes that his own elevation must 
be sought quite as much by pulling others 
down as by using legitimate means to climb 
above them. 

The pre-moral stage of man's ambition is 
to become an aristocrat or autocrat, and, in 
achieving this end, he sees but little dif- 
ference between being superior to other men 
in actuality and appearing to be superior, 
because he is not yet wise enough to be rid 
of his vanity, egotism, envy, jealousy, intol- 
erance, selfishness, and revengefulness. Hence, 
most men are tyrants whenever an opportunity 
offers. 

In Europe the tyrannical or war element 
has secured a dominance so complete that 
few dare or even feel to speak of anything 
but military matters. 

In the unfoldment of ideals all of the races 
of earth are yet young. It is noticeable that 
the young usually dislike work and that, as 
a rule, they shirk whatever and wherever 
they can. They not only dislike continuous 
and constructive effort, but labor to them is 
humiliating. 

The first evidence they show of the effects 
of civilized life and of budding puberty is 

—74— 



clean hands and clean cuffs. Equipped with 
these, youth prefers to look on while others 
perform. More often than not the work that 
youth should do is executed by the father 
or the mother. In shirking and shifting 
labor to another, youth experiences a feeling 
of triumph, especially if given an opportunity 
to ^'boss.'' 

''Bossing" soothes the sense of vanity and 
is much more satisfactory when performed 
in the presence of an audience. If a sweet- 
heart, another barbarian, whose heart swells 
with pride at the sight, happens to be among 
the onlookers, the performer's sense of pleas- 
ure reaches the limit of his emotion. 

Youth also desires to secure things with 
which to ''show off" among associates and 
neighbors. The latter are in feeling and in 
desire in sympathy with its motives, and en- 
joyment is augmented through evidences of 
their envy and jealousy. 

The young must have something to meet the 
requirements of this "Big Indian" type to 
which they, mentally and emotionally, be- 
long. They must have a delightful sensa- 
tion of importance and superiority or of 

—75— 



neighborhood triumph. In other words, they 
must *'put modern feathers in their hair/' 

Men of small caliber derive great pleasure 
from a position of command. They dearly 
love to give orders. Even if it be but a 
momentary holding, the opportunity to 
''boss*' may prove the one sweet chance of a 
lifetime, a short space of authority in which 
to tyrannize over mental and moral superiors, 
whom, for this very reason, small men hate. 
Again, it is a matter of *' feathers in the 
hair. ' ' 

The above is set forth in order to place 
before the reader the average of human aspi- 
ration, to show what the present world- 
desire stands for, to point out its place of 
arrival, and to exhibit, through its bad fruits 
of conduct, the need and possibility of re- 
vision by means of educational improvement. 

For, so long as men remain unintelligent, 
they will desire and seek opportunities to 
''show off," triumph over, humiliate, com- 
mand, compel obedience, and to enjoy that 
suffering which they pretend to deplore. 

So long as this is the prevailing mental 
condition and feeling there can be no true 
democracy, for, competition will be strangled 

—76— 



by monopoly, followed by its inevitable pro- 
ducts of graft, tips, poverty, failures, suicides, 
charity, crime, prisons, snobs, pretense, and 
war, accompanied by a million and one well- 
meaning simple beads trying to reform mat- 
ters by doctoring the effects with law and 
prohibitions. 

The thing most needed is freedom, the 
freedom that intelligence and honesty give. 
If men are free to think and to act, educa- 
tion is a possibility. If they can change, 
they can improve. If they can improve by 
involuntary effort (and, if we know any- 
thing, we know that they have and can) 
they can improve much faster by voluntary 
effort, and hereby rapidly diminish the dis- 
cords and discomforts of life. 

Since enlightenment is the thing of most 
importance in the world, a special, world- 
wide educational campaign waged against 
ignorance should be possible — a campaign 
started by the founders of this republic, 
but not yet sufficiently well understood to be 
appreciated, improved upon, and used to re- 
move the ''feathers from the hair," and to 
usher in a greater harmony of life. 

Warfare between nations is due to re- 

—77-- 



movable causes. Most men at the head of 
affairs are not far evolved beyond the masses 
and are, therefore, not the wisest among 
men, while others, the on-lookers, bewildered 
by the glamour of executive position, give 
to their leaders credit for more than they 
know and more than they are worth. The 
dignities that blind leaders of men feel they 
must support are much more personal than 
national. Books, befogged by time, fear, 
sentiment, parenthetical tangles, and redund- 
ancy have a like effect upon uninformed 
minds — books seem to be profound if they 
cannot be understood. 

In spite of what the false ideals of many 
men lead them to believe, those who willing- 
ly engage in or consent to the slaughter of 
others are men far from being large in 
wisdom. It is simply a matter of a few 
small men, in the green fields of the distance, 
appearing to be large to many men who are 
still smaller. But it is in the evolving law 
that still greater men beyond the popular 
ken are increasing in numbers, men that in- 
crease of general knowledge will bring into 
view who now stand watching the spec- 

—78— 



tacular play, the pjn^otechnics of ignorance, 
greed, cunning, and insanity. 

Admiration of the German Kaiser, an ad- 
miration evinced by many of his enemies, 
can be accounted for in no way except 
through the existence of low ideals. Ir- 
respective of the position an individual may 
occupy in the eyes of the world, the cherish- 
ing of revengeful hatred characterizes his 
mind as a small and barbarous one, and — ^it 
always acts as a boomerang. 

Hence, it is evident that tremendous need 
exists for the elevation of human ideals 
through educational means. 

It is, however, one thing to see an un- 
desirable social condition, another to see 
the cause, and quite another to remove it. 
To see the effects of disease is a simple mat- 
ter, but its diagnosis and treatment may be 
a very difficult one. To see an opportunity 
or a possibility is much easier than the de- 
velopment — this involves thought and practice. 
To visualize is not to realize, for the first is 
theory alone, and the second, theory in prac- 
tice. The first is a gold mine discovered, 
and the second is one in productive oper- 
ation. 

—79— 



It is, also, one thing to see that a man is 
small, and another to reveal the facts to 
others, while the impossible thing, as a rule, 
is to pierce his egotism and to make him 
large, particularly if he occupies a prominent 
place in the eyes of men and belongs to the 
domineering type. 



THE ''BOSSy TYPE AS A CAUSE 

3N the indulgence of its lower manifesta- 
tions the reader may have noted that 
when the ''bossy" type of mind can ob- 
tain nothing else upon which to exercise its 
proclivities — it buys a dog. It is always fond 
of dogs because of their submissiveness — a 
trait that in dogs is commonly called faith- 
fulness. 

But the dog must obey. So long as he 
obeys, so long as he assumes an attitude of 
great humiliation, wags his tail, crouches 
and cringes in humble, prayerful acknowl- 
edgment of the superiority of his master, and 
takes his thrashing thankfully, so long is 
he beloved, petted, defended, and cared for. 

—80— 



Really and truly, however, is not this be- 
cause the dog is an unreasoning fool? Cats 
do not humble themselves, nor are they 
obedient. The cat and the suffragette are 
the two particular aversions of the ''bossy," 
undemocratic, tyrannical type of man. 

Change conceals the secret of improvement, 
yet, when it threatens to break up comfort- 
able habits and special privileges, it is usually 
resented in a very marked way. 

This adds to the difficulty which the 
*' bossy" type of man naturally finds in ad- 
mitting the claims of the suffragette. But 
the suffragette heralds a new day; she rep- 
resents a larger measure of progress; she 
ushers in one more factor of the democracy 
of feeling; she represents an onward move- 
ment of growing freedom that the ''bossy" 
type is powerless to stay, and before which 
it cannot stand. It will take time, but pro- 
gress declares that the loves of the tyrant, 
one by one, are doomed. 

True dignity is simple. It is the product 
of wisdom, and it does not need to protect 
itself with assumptions, with pretense and 
declarations of war. The proof of its worth 

—81— 



is found in its practices, particularly in the 
democracy of feeling, of justice, of universal 
brotherhood. 



SMALL GREATNESS— ITS USE 

/f^NCE more — the small man seems to be 
^^ large to the man still smaller. That 
which a man conceives to be great de- 
pends upon his own conception of greatness — 
upon his own size. Greatness is purely 
relative. There is a large element of great- 
ness in physical courage. There is budding 
greatness in self-esteem, and even in egotism. 
These represent growth, a desire to be some- 
thing better. 

Yet men thus characterized cannot be con- 
sidered to have reached an elevation of high 
mental outlook, that is, when measured by 
the higher ideals of wisdom and moral cour- 
age. They have not yet become either wise 
or great. Wise men have never been tyrants, 
they do not abuse their freedom to act, nor 
do they take advantage of generosity. The 

—82— 



wise man believes in justice and strives for 
it, desiring that others may be happy. He 
realizes that men require leaders, but he has 
no ambition to dominate and coerce. 

We have reason to suspect, then, that ag- 
gressive, "bossy" men — men with rough, 
coarse, brutal courage, men who believe them- 
selves naturally selected or providentially 
appointed to care for the many at the ex- 
pense of their freedom, and of the larger 
part of their earnings, — may be instruments 
serving a higher purpose than either they or 
others know, a purpose that the higher type 
could not serve. 

For, does not the domineering, aggressive 
man give men of lesser size the foolish, drastic 
experiences which are needed at certain 
stages of unfoldment? Does not this also ex- 
plain why men of the ''bossy" type accept 
of the hero worship offered as theirs by 
right of their own merit? Does it not also 
explain why they believe that it is tendered 
by blind, involuntary mass wisdom instead 
of, as is actually the case, by blind mass 
ignorance ? 

It must not be forgotten that there is an 
argument for things as they are — one in 

—83— 



which there is undoubtedly deeper wisdom 
than we know. In injustice and what it 
brings in suffering there may be — nay, there 
must be — concealed beyond human vision a 
deeper wisdom and a larger conception of the 
justice of things. Else, why its persistence? 

The careful observer has learned that it 
matters little what a man desires to do, for, 
if he is ingenious in argument, he can, in any 
circumstance, convince himself that his de- 
sired conduct is either justifiable or admis- 
sible. 

There are many reasons for thinking that 
the criminal of deepest dye thinks out for 
himself a defense of his crime that he is 
seldom able to express in words — a defense 
that, when referred to the heart of things, 
to the court of a larger wisdom and deeper 
justice, may obtain some credit. 

Hence, exploiters, monopolists, would-be 
guardians of men, and warriors may have in 
defense of their theories and of their conduct 
a larger element of right than we realize, if 
not as much as they believe they have. 

The existence of the exploiter of men as 
well as his doubtful-looking conduct are plain 

—84— 



facts. But the ''why" challenges an ex- 
planation. 

These men come equipped with courage, 
energy, selfishness, and ambition to coerce 
and to rule others. Often they appear with 
moral obtuseness and with utter contempt for 
the natural rights of their fellows while 
proclaiming the reverse. Why? 

In things as they are, there is evidence of 
a larger purpose than any yet known to man. 
What this purpose is, is still in the main an 
enigma. 

It is evident that the ^' bossy" type of man, 
when he awakens to his opportunities on this 
globe, finds it peopled by foolish minds, 
which he is impelled, through his ambition, 
to manage. He, therefore, proceeds to assist 
them in their foolishness, a part of which is 
to retain them in ignorance, poverty, and in 
suffering, and to direct them as they fight and 
kill each other. Why? Must they not fight 
and think their own way into individuality 
and freedom? 

It is further evident that when the turn 
of the political tide brings back a wave of 
democracy and an effort is made by a new 
administration to restore to the many some of 

—85— 



their natural rights, the conservative element 
composed of this legal-right, wealth-control- 
ling protectorate always proceeds to make 
trouble with ''hard times" in order to re- 
cover control. 

Why is it that voters are so blind to their 
larger interests as to restore a party, so 
plainly unworthy of trust, to power at the 
first opportunity — to elect into office the 
masters by whom they have heretofore been 
betrayed and despoiled? 

At a certain not very high stage of human 
development, the warrior and the political 
stage of mind, there is nothing in the world 
that seems sweeter than an opportunity to 



This is the goal, or it seems to be the goal, 
where the individual is entitled to wear, 
and he usually does wear, a sixteen-inch 
collar, a sixty-four inch waistcoat, and a 
number six hat. He is the admired of the 
populace, the blustering, dearly-beloved of 
the people — their "boss." 

"Why should this be so when there are so 
many sources of information in the world 
from which to construct higher ideals? Why? 
Is there no way in which man can be moved 

—86— 



to throw off the slavery of ignorance ex- 
cept by flagellation, starvation, and suf- 
fering ? 

Ideas, the phantom forms of mental struc- 
tures, are made tangible by verbal expres- 
sion, by words. 

But, because this equipment of thought 
and expression has been acquired by the 
few only, the average man is but a feeble 
reasoner. He can, therefore, be led to be- 
lieve in and to act upon almost any sort of 
political, economic, or religious scheme of 
foolishness constructed and set up by a clever 
sophist. He is managed through his feel- 
ings because he is unable to manage himself 
through his reason. That he has consented 
to remain in ignorance is evident, but why 
this consent? 

It is easily verified that when men reason 
they are not satisfied with sophistry, nor 
are they controlled by their emotions, and, 
in the larger sense, it can be seen that war 
in these circumstances will be no longer 
possible. But we are still unsatisfied, we are 
still inclined to wonder why we are so long 
in learning', and why information so offends 
us. 

—87— 



Why? Is it not that we are not yet 
awakened to our own possibilities and needs, 
that we are not yet conscious of our own 
power and of the opportunities for its ex- 
ercise ? 

Does this negative element, in which most 
of us belong, deserve better treatment until 
such time as, under the natural law of un- 
foldment, it shall awaken to the importance 
of enlightenment and mastery of surround- 
ings? 

Does not official abuse, ignorance, and 
tyranny over bodies of men carve out of 
the aggregate- a valuable mass-acting knowl- 
edge? Does it not sting and torture into ac- 
tion a power, an efficiency, a body of char- 
acter that can be builded and brought into 
action in no other way? Do not the majority 
of men yet feel uncomfortable without 
** feathers in their hair"? 

It is very plain that men can be filled 
with the war thrill, mobilized, and made to 
slaughter other men against whom they can 
not have the least complaint only because 
they do not know enough for united self- 
protection. The wi'ongs to right which 
they are being slaughtered are non-existent, 

—88— 



excepting in their empty heads. Why do 
they do this? 

The *'why" is simply explained. Feeling 
triumphs over reason. Ideals are wrong, 
the products of a meagre and false educa- 
tion — of one that does not enlighten. Men 
are, therefore, imbued with a feeling of 
plutocracy. 

Progress is democratic, and progress will 
finally have its way, even though it is 
obliged to make men wade through blood to 
carry out its program. Suffering is the in- 
evitable following of wrong conduct. 

Ignoring national lines, the human family 
may, for convenience of treatment, be loosely 
divided into two classes upon the basis of 
''feeling" — immoral and moral, predatory and 
non-predatory. The world being yet young, the 
predatory and the would-be predatory classes 
combined are still much the larger in numbers 
and they are the ones from which the non- 
predatory class is being slowly evolved. The 
dominant characteristic of the first mentioned 
class is selfishness, manifesting itself in a de- 
sire to monopolize all the wealth, to triumph 
over others, and to treat them as under- 
lings. 

—89— 



Progress in moving men forward into un- 
selfishness must be continuously breaking up 
the old forms made by their selfishness. This 
process brings fight, war, and suffering. All 
petrifactive dogma, all un-democracy, all sel- 
fishness, hate, and injustice must be grad- 
ually crushed under the competitive wheel 
of progress. And the greater the attempt to 
stop this move toward democracy and free- 
dom, the greater will be the turmoils of life 
and the bloodier will be the wars waged to 
destroy old forms. Not more law, but less 
law, is our need. 



ON WHICH SIDE ARE THE MAJORITY? 

HAT, then, is the matter? What do the 
experiences of your life teach you con- 
cerning the average aspiration, concern- 
ing the ideals of the majority? Examine 
yourself if you please. What is your lead- 
ing ambition? How many can go forward 
enthusiastically and honestly achieving with- 
out the spur of envy and jealousy? How 
many do you suppose have learned the art 

—90— 



of gradually eradicating these ignoble traits 
from their feelings? 

In which of the two classes constituting 
the subject matter of this essay do you 
think the majority are placed by their feel- 
ings? 

This age is calling for more men of under- 
standing, of moral stamina, of reliable con- 
duct of life. 

What would most men and women do with 
a million dollars if they had it? Would they 
not build for themselves a showy, vulgar, 
uncomfortable home and equip it to entertain 
a crowd of simpletons, so that they, their 
wives and children, might, by '' showing off," 
create envy and jealousy in the minds of 
their relatives and little neighbors? 

How many men do you suppose, if they 
had the means, would support on the sly 
another woman, as we know many wealthy 
men do, when their wives begin to fade? 
How many women would be honest were they 
not obliged to be honest? 

It is possible for all men to be rich in the 
sense of having all they could possibly use. 
Why are they not? Can they ever be rich 
in this sense. Do they deserve to be, till such 

—91— 



time as they are sufficiently unfolded in wis- 
dom and the fellow-feeling that brings moral 
conduct, to not abuse the use of wealth? 

At this time, when the world is so much 
in need of strong, moral men, what, do you 
think, would the average man do with 
authority if he had it? Would he show him- 
self to be a bully by using it in an arbitrary 
and tyrannical manner? What does the 
average man with an opportunity to take 
advantage of others, what with a place of 
trust, either public or private ? What happens 
when men are fully trusted? Why must 
every business be expensively safeguarded 
against employes and the public? 

There are two very evident benefits to be 
derived from self control, the first of which 
is to strengthen the will and the second to 
cultivate the old, tribal, animal man into one 
of a higher order, one capable of living 
among civilized men and women in a com- 
munity of a dense population where moral 
conduct becomes necessary. 

How many, then, have reached the place 
where the old order in themselves can with- 
stand temptation? The current opinion is 
that most men have a purchase price rang- 

—92— 



ing from about ten cents to a million dollars. 
The general belief is, not without good 
reason, that comparatively few are above 
purchase. 

Very evidently, most men with an op- 
portunity become grafters and the smaller 
''fry" take tips with little or no consciousness 
of their degrading effect, while they will lie 
with little or no provocation. 

There are few who have reached that 
place where they can take the mishaps and 
discipline of life philosophically, and, while 
being misunderstood, work cheerfully on with- 
out whining, and without shedding tears of 
self-pity, at the same time doing their best to 
spread some light around them. 

Nothwithstanding the fact that it is im- 
possible for us to understand others, or even 
ourselves, few take kindly to being mis- 
understood. 

Progress is slow and the turmoil great be- 
cause few realize that universal reliability 
alone can hasten the process of increasing 



The understanding of the social unit must 
be reached, for the solution of the social prob- 

—93— 



lem depends on trustworthiness and individual 
responsibility. 

Everybody must sometimes come to under- 
stand, and practically, the importance of his 
own personal honesty, must come to realize that 
perfect and universal trustworthiness would 
do away with locks and keys, with bolts and 
bars, with police and prisons, with laws and 
courts, with poverty and charity, and grad- 
ually with sickness. Most of the expense of 
living is due to dishonesty. Men cannot 
be driven and punished into honesty, they 
must be educated and enticed thereto. 

The one great social need is the enlighten- 
ment of the individual. 

Labor unions and other organizations have 
value in-so-far as they promote the trust- 
worthiness of the individual; they are wrong 
in-so-far as they cultivate class hatred. These 
unions may be indispensable factors of 
growth. But are they not the long road to 
results that can be reached by a shorter 
route? Why not work with the individual 
whose wisdom and honesty needs to be en- 
larged upon and whose individuality thus be- 
comes ever more pronounced? 

The moment any person sees the meaning 

—94— 



of honest conduct, he no longer waits to be 
whipped into the practice of that trust- 
worthiness which must be in operation among 
men ere the transcendent era of happiness 
which men feel must come, can be ushered in. 

In the facts of life are concealed layer 
after layer of revelation that come breaking 
in upon the understanding with the unfold- 
ment of consciousness — this process can be 
hastened and insight gained by study, observa- 
tion, and reflection. 

In the facts of Nature, also in books, the 
greatest things are not generally under- 
stood. 

Spread before us in the facts of life are 
our past history and an outline of our future 
possibilities — or, we may say, that herein are 
the factors of prevision. 

The evolutionary factors now at work in 
our daily life reveal to the prepared mind 
an aim to effect very great changes in 
human betterment. 

But, it is also plain that the procedure, 
in carrying into effect this evolutionary pro- 
gram, can be and is delayed by selfishness. 

Is not our greatest need, then, an edu- 
cational one, a broader knowledge of the 

—95— 



facts of life, trained ability to read 
their meaning, a higher degree of rationality 
among men, a greater ability in the use of 
inference, in the increase of scientific acumen, 
of philosophical insight, an energy of mind 
that tires less quickly in its search for cause? 

Evidently, the greatest need is awaken- 
ing. Do not most men fail to do something 
either because they know nothing to do, 
or because they are prevented by monopoly 
from applying what they know? 

Were all men and women sufficiently wise 
to be perfectly trustworthy they would all 
be rich and happy. 

Just at this time of rapid and destructive 
change, there is great need for efforts to 
effect reconstruction — efforts to use old ma- 
terial to build anew and better. The world 
in these efforts should use its larger men and 
women, for progress is now trying to rid 
itself of its enemies. 

Men, who should listen, have failed to 
listen to the demands of progress. The 
present destruction of that which should be 
preserved with that which should be cast 
aside is the result of strenuous effort to 

—96— 



preserve the existing order of things — the 
product of selfish seizures and holdings. 

Progress rebukes conservative selfishness, 
by turning it into anarchy, into self de- 
struction. The over-conservative becomes the 
most dangerous iconoclast. While, on the 
other hand, the progressive, the democrat, or 
democratic principle, by casting aside the ob- 
solete, by leaving worthless forms behind it, 
becomes the true conservative by preserving 
and carrying forward all that is of value in 
progress. The war in Europe is the anarchy 
of conservatism, caused by the retention of 
obsolete forms of government and of men 
with ideals of a dead past to manage them. 

Nature will have her way of moral pro- 
gress and democracy, but, in order to achieve 
this, she is often obliged to wade through 
blood and ruin. 

Is it not a fact that with Nature's re- 
bellion, this destruction of the obsolete, our 
present little civilization is dangerously ill, 
and that the patient, if saved, must have 
the care of a great army of wise doctors and 
nurses enlisted on the side of reconstruction, 
of morality, democracy, and freedom, or, in 
a word, on the side of progress ? 

—97— 



Intelligence can help; ignorance and sel- 
fishness can and will hinder. The question 
is, what do we want? Do we desire that 
the world shall pass through another dark 
age, a thousand years of military rule and 
human slavery? Or, do we desire justice, 
freedom, democracy, and happiness? 

What our forefathers fought for in this 
country is threatened with extinction by the 
trend of events. Have we not lost sight of 
what they passed through great suffering to 
enable them to see — the curse of autocracy, 
the devilishness of a military and religious 
rule? What are you doing about it? No 
person is powerless. You can do something. 

In Europe a great, iconoclastic drama is 
being enacted. Do you look upon the re- 
sponsible leaders as great men? 

If so, take another look, and they may 
appear to be selfish children or very small 
men, absorbed by a game of chess; and so 
blinding is the dust and their selfishness, so 
deafening the din of battle, that they are 
almost certain to be consumed by the flames 
reaching to devour them — and the innocent, 
evidently, must go with the guilty, the penalty 
being always paid by the individual as well as 

—98— 



by society for refusing to use factors of pre- 
vention, or of reconstructive growth. 



ONLY ONE PEOBLEM TO SOLVE 

♦ip^AVE we any choice of ways to go, of 
nj men to be and of things to possess? If 

so, free will is a fact, education a pos- 
sibility, and for this purpose there is abund- 
ance of acquired knowledge in the world, 
stored in books that would, if used, serve to 
double general intelligence. 

But, this knowledge, tangled up by in- 
volved expression and hidden in ponderous 
volumes, high priced and agent-exploited, 
is inaccessible to the majority. 

Nor is this all, in the matter of economics, 
wealth production and distribution, there is 
false instruction in our public schools, kept 
there by selfish private interests working 
through politics. 

This is what deprives the public schools 
of their natural means of abundant support — 
education is robbed and defeated by selfish- 
ness. 

—99— 



It is a mistake to suppose that the world 
has many problems to solve — ^it has but one — 
the one of ignorance. 

To most persons there appear to be many- 
problems to solve, only because they take 
the many bad effects of ignorant selfish con- 
duct which they see in operation to be causes. 
Remove ignorance, the cause of these bad ef- 
fects, in other words, enlighten, and they will 
forever disappear. 

The world-stage is strewn with the wreck- 
age of campaigns of ignorance and selfish- 
ness, but history records no united effort, 
no crusade, against the world's greatest 
enemy — Ignorance. 

There is nothing the matter with the world, 
except that it does not know, and, that it 
lacks the ''awakeness" and the energy to 
learn — it acts like something young, adoles- 
cent. 

The world, evidently, has not yet learned 
that warfare solves no problems but that 
it is merely an attention-arresting disease, 
an effect of injustice — the cause of which is 
ignorance. 

The problem-solving-move needed is one that 
will popularize intelligence-gaining, one that 

—100— 



will awaken men and women, one that will 
make readers, thinkers, and reasoners — ration- 
al beings — a campaign made to arouse and 
to enthuse, one to create an interest in the 
cultivation of a higher code of ethics, higher 
ideals. 

If an economic system handicaps educa- 
tion, it is the enemy of all human beings, 
even of those who believe that they are 
hereby benefited; for, such an economic sys- 
tem, being the enemy of progress, must 
prevent happiness. 

In a land of plenty, under a system that 
makes beggars and criminals, it is impossible 
for even the millionaire to be truly happy; 
it is but slowly, however, that men of great 
wealth can come to realize this fact — this 
realization comes only through suffering the 
consequences of dishonesty. 

But, understanding will come, for, if prog- 
ress has not already reached that place where 
millions of dollars fail to protect their owners 
from the disastrous consequences of auto- 
cracy and dishonesty, it is rapidly approach- 
ing that place, or condition. 

This problem of ignorance must be solved, 
internationally as well as nationally. Should 

—101— 



the present European struggle leave all the 
nations engaged, and all of the multi-million- 
aires who imagine they are now growing 
richer hereby, bankrupt, what a tremendous 
lesson it would teach the world in social, po- 
litical, and economic honesty. 

In any country where patriotism means 
loyalty to an unjust system, to a system that 
is disloyal to the majority of the patriots, 
there will always be increasing trouble, grad- 
ual national decay, and at no distant day, 
as in all the ages of the past, there will come 
national extinction. 

Struggling with the great opposition of 
human selfishness due to ignorance. Evolu- 
tion, evidently, is endeavoring to carve out 
a moral social system, one in which men and 
women can obtain a much larger measure of 
justice and happiness. 

This struggle is trying to make us under- 
stand, you and I; it needs our help, yours 
and mine; it is trying to torture us into self 
control, in order that we may arrive at a 
mutual understanding. 

Volumes containing most needed informa- 
tion, of a pocket size, cheap in price, simply, 
clearly, and concisely expressed, can be made 

—102— 



a very great help in the interest of a social 
health campaign. 

Could millions of such volumes be circu- 
lated, with the assistance of all those who 
might help to stimulate their reading and 
discussion, a tremendous change for the bet- 
ter would take place in a very few years. 

You are approaching the end of this volume. 
"When through, ask yourself if your time and 
money has been well used — make an honest 
inquiry, for you cannot afford to deceive 
either yourself or others. 

So far as the writer is concerned you can 
speak your mind freely. He prefers that you 
do so, for he has never been anybody's pet, 
can stand a very large measure of truth, 
is not easily offended, cherishes no revenge- 
ful hatreds, is profiting by neither graft nor 
monopoly, belongs to no ''bunch," club, or 
church, has no family padlock on his brain, 
and is willing, even anxious, to learn. 

To a reader, the value of a book can be 
safely estimated by the extent to which it 
informs and sets up constructive mental ac- 
tion. 

The book that avoids surfeiting detail, gives 

—103— 



its reader time and inspiration to think out 
and discover by inference much that has 
been left unwritten, renders the best of 
service. 

It is very probable, however, that in no 
instance, has the reading of a book ever 
given perfect satisfaction — the book lacks 
something — so does the reader. 

Hence, equally true does this incomplete- 
ness of satisfaction hold in every other ex- 
perience of life, but it is followed, however, 
in nearly all cases, by a new desire, or object 
of pursuit. This is the way we are enticed 
forward in the interest of individual and social 
progress. 

Thus is explained why that which we de- 
sire to achieve seems so important in antic- 
ipation and shrinks so perceptibly when real- 
ized — we anticipate in ignorance, we realize 
with a gain of knowledge. 

Books are human productions and their 
readers are human beings. 

The writer of a book is an individual and 
his readers are other individuals, each of 
whom is a product of a particular ancestry, 
as well as of specific or personal experiences 
including education. 

—104— 



Consequently we differ, each from the other, 
as we must and should, for herein, in variety 
of life and form, is concealed the great secret 
of competitive progress, a matter which, be- 
cause it is not in the least understood, we 
are yet fighting, shedding tears over, and 
trying to monopolize and to socialize out of 
existence. 

If this booklet gives the reader an idea and 
stimulates his mental action, it will render 
a valuable service. 

If it convinces him that the book is worthy 
of a wide circulation, he should recommend 
it to others in simple justice — but he is here 
requested to leave all charity, even all gen- 
erosity, out of his comments and recom- 
mendations. The writer desires honest opin- 
ions, even though they may be given with 
entire lack of understanding, for he is trying 
to learn what he must do to make himself 
understood. 

The sale of a local production and its price 
should be no greater than its merit — but local 
prejudice should make it no less. 

It is possible — it has happened — that there 
may be issued outside of New York City, by 
an author with no after-attachment to his 

—105— 



name, a book, the cost of which has been de- 
frayed by the writer, and that this book may 
still have some merit. 

But if this book have merit who is to as- 
certain in what it consists? Why, some one 
far away, of course. 

Those who most strongly urge the en- 
couragement of home industry with patron- 
age — chambers of commerce and bankers for 
instance — do so to influence others to do the 
patronizing. 

Perhaps you have noticed that few of those 
who receive heavy business rents make their 
purchases in home cities — that the rents of 
the smaller cities are paid out in New York, 
Chicago, and Boston, while a very large 
part of the ground rent of these large cities 
is, or has been, spent beyond the Atlantic — 
much of it squandered in vulgar display. 

To make this somewhat plainer, this tend- 
ency of local prejudice to handicap local pro- 
duction, the writer here paraphrases a few 
thoughts on the psychology of the matter 
from the body of this little volume. 

Practically, men are prejudiced against 
the easily obtained, the near at hand, and the 
familiar. Those who make things worth hav- 

—106— 



ing, they feelingly believe, are far away, in 
New York or in Europe, perhaps; those who 
know things worth telling are either all dead, 
or they too are far away — anyhow they are 
not in sight. 

Not having learned to understand and 
master their prejudices, men are mastered by 
them and prevented from thinking — ^no man 
can select intrinsic values from the material 
of life, can discard the unfit, without some- 
thing to select with, other than his hands. 

Hence, the saying that ''Distance lends en- 
chantment to the view" is a brief statement 
of a truth having a very wide application in 
the affairs of the majority of men and women. 

That is, distance, money, fine garments, 
emotional speech, official position, theatrical 
attire, assumed dignity, music, as well as many 
other things of like nature, lend a stage ef- 
fect, give to personality a romantic glamour 
that tends to strike with awe and subdue the 
average mind. 

''Distance," either in time or in space, 
"lends enchantment." Hence, fields when 
viewed from afar appear to be smooth and 
more intensely green. To a certain class of 
Western men, the finest flavored apples, all 

—107— 



the books, bookstores and libraries worth 
having are in the Bast. 

This is the attitude of mind that kills home 
industry, starts up neighborhood quarrels with 
a fly speck, and enables spurious dignity and 
autocratic assumption to enslave simpletons. 



C 219 89 ^« 

—108— 



T HE R B KS 

If, having read this volume, the reader desires 
more from the same source, covering different 
fields of thought, it can be found in "Human 
Harmonies," in "The Greater Men and Women," in 
"Anarchy or Compulsory Order — Which?" in "Why 
You Are Not a Sucncess," and in about one hundred 
other brief essays and monographs. 
The Greater Men and Women as Factors of Human 

Progress. By S, P. Shorey. 

A study in the unfoldment of human con- 
sciousness, the evolution or awakening of ideas, the 
change and march of ideals and human realizations, 
a glance at the way of human progress. 

The above is a 93-page essay, making a booklet 
of about eighteen thousand words, printed in large 
type and on good paper for comfortable reading. 
Price, in paper, 25 cents; cloth, 50 cents; leather, 
75 cents. 
Human Harmonies and the Art of Making Them. 

By. S. F. Shorey. 

An inquiry into the why of life's turmoil, a 
search for the cause and the best method to effect 
its removal, with particular application to the family 
life. 

A 163-page book of about forty thousand words, 
type large and clear, price, in cloth, 50 cents. 
The Elixir of Life. By G. R. S. Mead. 

In this booklet of succinct and careful expres- 
sion, are set forth some of the fundamental prac- 
tices necessary to secure an extremely long and 
comfortable life in which to complete work that 
most men leave unfinished. 

In its treatment it is scientific — sound, physi- 
ologically and psychologically. Price 25 cents, in 
paper covers. 









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HECKMAN 

BINDERY INC. |§| 

#AUG 89 
N. MANCHESTER, 
INDIANA 46962 







